"The Government is treating agriculture as an important spring-board", stressed András Giró-Szász at the press conference on Wednesday at which he and Minister for Rural Development Sándor Fazekas jointly announced that the Government had passed the proposal regarding the National Rural Strategy.

András Giró-Szász stated, "According to the Government's standpoint, the security of a nation depends on its handling rural areas and agriculture as a resource. The protection of these two areas is a strategic goal. The Government is treating agriculture as an important spring-board, and it is important that as many people as possible choose high quality, safe and GMO-free Hungarian foods and food products", he added.

Sándor Fazekas stressed that the creation of the National Rural Strategy means the successful filling in of a chasm that has been gaping for many years now. The adoption of the programme was preceded by a social debate lasting more than one year. Tens of thousands of observations and the material from numerous studies have been worked into the 130-page Strategy to ensure the creation of a competitive rural countryside and agriculture.

The Minister explained that certain results already show how important the agricultural sector is for the country, and for this reason, the retention of both local and foreign markets is a goal of great importance.

"The Strategy is committed to supporting family run farms, protecting our environmental treasures, and ensuring sustainable farming in Hungary" – stressed Sándor Fazekas.

"The National Rural Strategy also includes several important objectives: it plans to increase the number of people employed in agriculture to 700 thousand by 2020, to increase the ratio of products directly distributed locally by farmers to 20 percent, and to increase the proportion of young farmers from 21 to 30 percent. To this end, the Government is providing support through several programmes" – said the Minister for Rural Development.

(kormany.hu)