"Game meat is a 'renewable natural resource' and also a healthy foodstuff, but good quality game can only come from conscious and well-founded professional game management", Chief Veterinarian Endre Kardeván declared on Tuesday as a professional forum in Budapest.

The Ministry of Rural Development's Minister of State for Food Chain Supervision and Agricultural Economy was speaking at a forum on current issues in game health organised by the Veterinary Faculty of Szent István University. Game meat is low in fat and carbohydrates but rich in proteins, minerals and vitamins, making it especially suitable for modern consumer requirements, he added.

Mr. Kardeván stressed that cooperation between the game sector and public administration has achieved significant results over the past four years. For example, in 2010 the Ministry of Rural Development introduces a decree on game meat which made it easier for Hungarian families to purchase game and to distribute it locally. In addition, other legislative changes relating to game meat have succeeded in achieving a permanently higher price for red deer, fallow deer, roe deer and mouflon meat.

Thanks to these favourable processes, the turnover of the whole sector increased to 20.3 billion forints (EUR 64.5m) in the 2012-2013 season, of which turnover from game meat was 5.3 billion forints (EUR 17m), which as a result exceeded income from tourism-related hunting for the first time ever. Accordingly game meat management has become a decisive factor for those with the right to hunt, the Minister of State said, adding that the Government had succeeded in making the game management sector permanently profitable.

Mr. Kardeván pointed out that while the sector closed 2010 with a turnover of 160 million forints, this had increased almost nine-fold to 1.4 billion forints in the last hunting season. This means that the income of people with hunting rights has increased by an average of one million forints.

(MTI, Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development)