Technology suppliers of the food industry can apply for a total amount of HUF eight billion, and grant applications can be submitted between March 11 and 31, László György, the State Secretary responsible for economic strategy and regulation of the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) announced yesterday in Budapest.
The state secretary said: the non-refundable grant is a minimum of twenty million and a maximum of three billion forints, the amount of the grant can be 35-50 percent of the development, the application can provide resources throughout the country. In the framework of the Food Industry Technology Supplier Development Program, companies supplying precision tools, machines, automated production lines, climate-friendly and cost-effective irrigation and weed control solutions, and technologies, among others, can get support for the actors of the food industry, he explained.
László György explained: technology is developing explosively, and the government's goal is for Hungarian businesses to be among the first to use cutting-edge technologies, so that the players in the domestic agriculture and food industry become the winners of the decade. Hungary is the first in the region to launch a development program for technology suppliers serving agriculture and the food industry, the State Secretary indicated.
Minister of Agriculture István Nagy emphasized: Hungary has extraordinary capabilities to become self-sufficient in terms of food production or rather a food exporting country. The minister put it this way: Hungarian agriculture is able to supply about twenty million people, but at the same time, with the current technological level, it is not possible to meet the challenges of the future.
He pointed out that, in addition to the funds allocated in the past year, additional HUF 1,400 billion development funds are planned for agriculture and the food industry, which will mean an investment worth HUF 2,800 billion in the sector.
The minister called it particularly important that the tender also enables support for the processing of organic manure, which is considered a key issue for agriculture.
The beneficial effect of organic fertilizers has been known for a long time, but at the same time, the role of organic fertilization has significantly decreased in the conditions of intensive farming, he explained.
István Nagy explained that the ministry pays special attention to the greatest possible replacement of fertilizer, and in this context, to the environmentally conscious processing and further utilization of organic manure produced in agriculture, adding that the difficulties of fertilizer supply must also be answered.
Source: MH/ Tünde Mihalovics' coverage here .
Featured image: MTI/Noémi Bruzák
