This year’s International Green Week opened with an extravagant gala in Berlin yesterday evening. At the opening ceremony, Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas told the around 3,000 participants of the gala why it is both important and an honour for Hungary that we have been invited to be guest of honour at Europe’s largest and most prestigious agriculture and food industry expo.
International Green Week, Europe’s largest and most prestigious agriculture and food industry expo and one of the most important forums of agricultural diplomacy, opened this week, where Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas has already spent the first day holding bilateral talks with several of his fellow ministers from around the world.
“The problem of water scarcity must not be remedied by promoting the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture”, Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas stressed on Saturday in Berlin at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), the main topic of which was sustainable water management.
“The reduction in VAT promotes economic growth and results in the whitening of the economy, increased domestic consumption and lower imports” the Ministry of Agriculture’s Deputy State Secretary for the Agricultural Economy Zsolt Feldman said on Hungarian M1 television’s Thursday evening current affairs program.
The Agriculture Ministers of the European Union’s Member States have adopted a political resolution on reinforcing the situation of farmers within the supply chain and on reducing unfair practices on the part of distributors. They have taken a firm stand in support of the fact that next year the European Commission should put forward a proposal with which the EU can successfully combat unfair trade practices.
The presence of avian influenza or bird flu (H5N8) has been identified in several European countries in recent days. In Hungary, a new outbreak occurred at a duck farm in Kiskunmajsa. In the interests of preventing the spread of the disease, the animal health service began cunning the livestock based on the suspicion of infection; the state will provide compensation.
“Hungary has an interest in agricultural innovation that sets as its goal sustainable development and the reduction of substances that are damaging to the environment”, Minister of State Andrea Gulyás from the Ministry of Agriculture said in Kunming, China, at a summit of Chinese and Central-Eastern European Agriculture Ministers.
“The European Commission – citing the fact that it wishes to simplify the funding system – has proposed amendments which include some extremely cleverly smuggled in points that are totally unacceptable and violate our national interests”, Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas said in Warsaw at a summit of Visegrád Group (V4) agriculture ministers and their Bulgarian, Slovenian and Romanian counterparts.
According to Minster of State for State-owned Land Márton Örs Bitay, the “Land for Farmers’” programme has been the most successful land distribution programme since the regime change; every third farmer, some 30 thousand, have received farmland.
“This year’s pálinkas are of exceptional quality and quantities have also doubled according to figures for the first half of the year”, Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas said at the 3rd Kunadacs Pálinka and Sausage Festival on Saturday.