"The 'Land for Farmers' Programme is principally aimed at helping family farms and young farmers by enabling them to improve their production conditions", the Ministry of Rural Development's Minister of State in charge of the State Land Programme said at a press conference in Budapest today.

Márton Bitay said that 250 thousand hectares of state-owned farmland had been made available for leasehold within the framework of the programme, which is scheduled to end in late January, early February. After all the related contracts are concluded, a total over 6 thousand farmers are expected to have acquired the right to work state land. This is ten times as many as during the socialist governments, the Ministry of State emphasised.

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Over 80 percent of the winning tenders so far were submitted by individuals. Each applicant has won the right to work an average of 25-30 hectares of arable land and some 60 hectares of grassland. This underpins the fact that the current government aims primarily to help family run farms and young farmers rather than large farms, corporation and company groups, Mr. Bitay added.

The Minister of State pointed out that the Government wishes to reduce the current 50 ratio of land use by large farms to only 20 percent, while increasing the area of land used by private individuals to 80 percent. In addition, the Government would like to reinforce the position of family farms and young farmers. Furthermore, only locally resident farmers may now acquire farmland in Hungary, thus preventing speculation on farmland. Some 8600 hectares, an overwhelming majority of the some 10 thousand hectares of land found within the territory of the Körös-Maros National Park Directorate and made available for leasehold within the framework of the Land for Farmers Programme, was awarded to private individuals. In addition, every second young farmer who applied was also awarded land in this area; 2650 hectares of land was awarded to fifty-one young farmers in leasehold, Mr. Bitay said. The Minister of State also noted that the adjudication of tender applications had also been completed at the Hortobágy National Park, in addition to which winning entries are being published continuously by the National Land Fund Management Organisation (NFA).

Director of the Körös-Maros National Park László Tirják explained that the National Park was established in 1997 in the southern trans-Tisza region with a total area of 51.125 hectares. The total area made available within the framework of the programme was 9515 hectares, which was split into 268 plots. 1026 applications were submitted of which 265 were awarded 10-year leases to the state-owned farmland.

(MTI)