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27 August 2007

Honorable Jozsef Graf
Minister of Agriculture and Regional Development
Republic of Hungary
Kossuth Lajos tér 11
1055 Budapest

Dear Minister Graf:

We, the European team of Food & Water Watch, a non-profit organization that supports family farming and challenges unsustainable agricultural and food systems, are writing to express our concerns over the “setting up of young farmers” section of the New Hungary Rural Development Programme.

According to the New Hungary Rural Development Programme document of July 6, 2007, young farmers are expected to increase the size of their holdings above 5 ESU in a period of 3 years. This strikes us as an unrealistic expectation for young farmers, considering that the average size of a family farm in Hungary was 3.5 hectares in 2005. In order to be eligible for the program, many young farmers will have to more than double the size of farms received from their parents, or to buy several small agricultural holdings. It seems that only very few young farmers will be able to benefit from the program.

Additionally, they are required to have agricultural qualifications. The relevant section of the program does not make it clear whether young farmers can obtain such qualifications after establishing a farm or if they must have prior qualifications.

The Polish experience shows that such unreasonable expectations regarding the farm size that young farmers must achieve is contributing to the Polish program’s inefficiency in regions where the average farm size is smaller than the national average. (The Polish Rural Development Programme 2007-2013 requires that farms eligible for a young farmers’ premium must be larger than the national average.) Also, in Poland, young farmers must have agricultural training before becoming owners of a farm. This makes many young people who would want to farm and start agricultural training automatically ineligible for the program.

The Polish Rural Development Programme 2007-2013 has been criticized by many farmers’ organizations, politicians and local governments of the regions where small farms prevail. Therefore, we are urging the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture to be very cautious in these matters and not to replicate the mistakes made in Poland.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,
Food & Water Watch Europe
Anna Witowska
Mark Worth
Giuseppina Pagano
Brigitte Zaccaria