1. Presentation 030610 FFA sub-conference BUDAPEST [.pdf]
2. PN_előadás_Budaörs _(2010. 06. 03.) [.pdf]
3. Jethro Budapest FINAL 3 6 2010 [.pdf]
4. ELO seminar Budapest June 2010 Tamas Marghescu - Copy [.pdf]
5. ELO presentation 2010 FCS GA - Thierry [.pdf]
6. ELO konferencia 2010 06 03 FINAL (Popp) [.pdf]

József VANCSURA, president of GOSZ

Dear Grain Producer,

The National Grain Producers’ Association, the GOSZ, has been established as the Product Council ceased to exist in 2004. Our main aim was to found for us producers, such a trade association which would represent the Hungarian grain producers’ interests.

We have commenced our tasks with the belief to unite the real interests of the Hungarian grain producers according to the Hungarian reality. We have represented and we represent today the interests of the farmers independent of the size of the farm: under 10 hectares, 10-50 hectares, 50-300 hectares, 300-600 hectares and above 600 hectares. By now, we have become a trade association which consists of approximately 3000 members and represents almost 1.5 million hectares.

We have always believed and still believe today that with communal thoughts and with the precise and unified expression of our interests, we can tell and we must tell what the grain producers’ interests are and through this, we must tell what the Hungarian nation’s interests are.

With the help of a unified language use, we have hoped to clarify today’s agricultural concepts and through this, we could strengthen our role in enforcing our interests. Our goal has been that same opinions or opinions that would tend towards one direction would appear in the media. This way, it would inform the Hungarian prople about our situation, which concerns their every day bread as well.

We have achieved that the results of our work directly and indirectly have reached the politicians and decision-makers, who may help shape the future. Without being complete, in this referral, we try to focus on the results and the failures of the work that we have done together with the members.

We would like to thank our 3000 members, who by paying their membership fees, have worked to create a stronger trade association. Special thanks to our delegates, who have supported our work with information that represents common goals.

In the last six years, the Presidency and the Supervision Committee have expressed their views on all essential questions and made decisions with consensus. It has been a hard and demanding work. Thanks to and special thanks that our Presidency and our Supervision Committee accepted this work without any payment. With this attitude, we could keep our financial situation stable.

I would like to thank Mihály Guba, Attila Nagy and Sándor Szemenyei for their important work. They have withdrawn from our corporation, for their deserved years as pensioners, we wish them all the best.

I strongly believe that we need the Grain Producer’s Association and we need every person who can contribute to the future of agriculture.

I would like to ask our members, the specialists and the organisations to continue helping the country and gather information so that we could have people who stand by us for our own interests as well as the interests of a food-consumer society.

With special thanks,

József Vancsura
President

This study has been created as in the last 20 years Hungarian agriculture has not had and even at present Hungary does not have a comprehensive economic strategy.

To prepare this would not be our task, however, as producers we have framed some views. These have and will have an effect on our lives and our society as well.

Many people evaluate and understand the data of our agriculture’s accomplishments differently. From the producers’ point of view, we can see that, similar to the agriculture all around the world, two main groups are dominant among the many types of producers:

SELF-SUPPORTING FAMILY FARMER and COMPETITION SPHERE FARMER

Both economic groups are equally essential and are equal in agriculture. For their efficient work, paying particular attention to the even chance, we need to work out a new agricultural strategy.

Stragegic aims:

• sustainable, environmentally friendly agriculture
• the production of safe, good quality and great quantity of food
• the assurance of good living for farmers

To reach these aims, we find it important to review the following topics as only with new means can we live up to the challenges of the future.

• soil
• water
• environment protection and rurality
• legal background, bureaucracy, finance

The soil, as the means of our agriculture, the supporter of the humanity, is our nation’s largest value, therefore, its protection and correct use is our future’s security.

The steps for the creation of stability:

• making of the soil act, which would frame the solutions to the challenges of the following 20-30 years
• the use of land (at present-2500 hectares/economy) and the change of the barriers of the ownership of land (300 hectares/person or 6000 AK/person)
• helping of Hungarian citizens to get land (selling of the state-owned property and long term loans for farmers to buy land)
• the immediate start of recruiting members
• the support of only those farmers who use the soil appropriately
• the strengthening of the responsibility of local organizations, local governments, the delegates of the farmers
• the stricter supervision of soil and protection of the soil

The management of water should be so that it would encourage to keep the water inland and use it (watering). The protection against floods and inland innundation need to be aligned with the already existing plans of building reservoirs. These should take into consideration the need for water of those areas that can be watered even in years when there would be drought.

The fees of the watering with surface water should be eliminated. These measures could bring.

Serious change in the competitiveness of the Hungarian agriculture as well as in the ability of creating new jobs.

The question of environment and that of the development of rurality need to be addressed together so that the decrease of the rural population would stop and so that the depopulation in some regions would be reversable. In accordance with this, we should support the self-supporting family farmers and the local efforts made for a liveable environment.

The people living in rural areas should remain the most important guardian of the environment, and for this aim, we should assign to this all the regualting systems.

The bureaucracy can decrease in only one way: if with the simplification of our law system, we utilize all the liquid assets so that we could make Hungarian farmers involved with:

• the restoration of the proportion of the animal husbandry and plant growing
• the operating of the processing industry and commerce with farmers’ ownership
• the basis of producing should be the farming traceability
• we should have an appropriate quality and large quantity of goods
• with the stability of producing raw material, using the possibilities of horizontal and vertical integration we would be present on the market with highly processed goods
• we should have goods proudly labelled as ’Hungarian products’, which would contain all the necessary information about the producer, the place of production and the mode of preparation, so that the consumer could look for our products

This study, without being complete, has been written from agricultural producers’ perspective. We are welcome to any debate and constructive elaboration of this topic.

Since its foundation in 2004, the National Grain Producers’ Association (GOSZ), has achieved to become an accepted trade association in Hungary as well as in the European Union.

We have succeeded to reach our goal on the field of communication. Our opinions are asked by many people both within the country and abroad as well. Our statements to the newspapers and television are simple, factual and well-established. We are grain producers and these interests motivate our manifestation.

Many different conclusions may be drawn from the data enclosed in our study. We intend to adopt these national data to our own farms and draw the conclusions. The most essential is for the farmers to assess their situation in their every day practice and to define the direction of future. We can state with certainty that we, the farmers alone cannot solve this difficult task. Without a clear economic strategy, our sector cannot be neither efficient nor competitive. Our country does not have and in the last 2 decades has not had any agricultural strategy. If it is not defined where would ’our boat’ lead to, it would be equal to us, from where the wind blows, we would only be able to struggle on the sea.

According to the tables, the production areas of main plants has not changed considerably and due to our continental climate our yield crops fluctuate. We know that one part of our crops is exported every year, that is why these crops need to meet the requirements of the world market. It can be noticed that our new competitors get stronger (for example Russia, Ucraine, Kazastan, Turkey). More and more countries-whose agricultural abilities are less favourable than ours-prepare a comprehensive strategy and demand a place of their own on the world market (for example Turkey with the watering of 1 million hectares would like to become a wheat exporter).

What must we do and what can we do in this situation? We are able to produce safe food. We have sufficient storage, but we must continually have appropriate quality and quantity of crops. This way, we will not only be producers but also sellers on the market. For this, we lack today the suitable strategy and finance.

We, the grain producers, have the needed skills, the technology, the machines, good quality land, that is why we can participate in the 3rd century food production competition. So far, we have not got the water supply systems needed for an intensive plant growing. Our future will be determined by watering, the climate change shows us this direction. Our agricultural strategy should be based on purposeful water management.

To reach our expected place on the world market, we must build a new market entry system. To achieve this, we must work hard in the following period.

We must continue fighting for the equal chance of the farmers in the member states in agriculture. We wish to do more within out country in order to have a safe food supply. The increased supervision of home products but mainly of products coming from foreign country is very important.

We should respect and protect our environment for ourselves and fellow-beings. We must be present in all forums where the focus is on rural issues and rural development. Without us, the rural development is unimaginable. We find it very important that we take part in the work of The Hungarian National Rural Development Chain.

The National Grain Producers’ Association can enforce the farmers interests within the European Union only with the support of the Hungarian autorities and offices. We have achieved smaller successes even as a politically independent Hungarian civil trade association. Our opinions have been asked many times and this is good.

In order to be even stronger, we must create grain commerce based on farmers’ property. We should not allow the cutback of the intellectual centre which deals with agricultural problems.

We strive to a continual renewal, we believe in the possibility of change and in the rise of intellectual value that stands by us. Our quest has not been finished, but it is still our aim to achieve good living in agriculture.

We thank all our fellow-beings for their important work in agriculture, because with their help, we have reached so far.

In the name of the presidency, we wish all the best: