Minister for Rural Development Sándor Fazekas held a lecture on the upcoming new Land Act entitled "Homeland, Farmland, Livelihood" on Saturday in Lakitelek at the first event organised by the Public Academic Alliance. Communiqué.

In his lecture, Minister Fazekas stressed: the Land Act currently before Parliament is one of the most important tools for realising Hungarian foreign policy goals, but not the only one. The Government has already made its ideas public in the National Rural Development Strategy and the Ignác Darányi Plan, and the legislature is currently involved in trying to establish the required regulatory background for the realisation of these plans.

Sándor Fazekas emphasised: the Government support the establishment of small and medium-sized estates. In future, only farmers will be able to purchase farmland, which in the Minister's opinion the most important element of the proposed new Land Act. At the event organised by the Public Academic Alliance (Közéleti Akadémiai Szövetség), there was much interest with regard to the filtering out of illegal and fraudulent so-called pocket contracts, in relation to which Sándor Fazekas said that in future, the purchasing of land will in all cases be subject to approval, and the State will have right of pre-emptive rights.

The proposed new legislation aims at strengthening the role played by family-run farms, because it is these that must constitute the bulk of medium-sized estates, the backbone of Hungarian agriculture. The employment of family members also means that an increase in livelihood opportunities may be realised in rural areas. "The Land Act must also assure the future of rural society", said Sándor Fazekas.

(Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development)