What happens to agriculture in 2022?
2022. December 28.This year has not been dull, by any means.
In 2022, for example, for the first time ever, our country had to import maize, due to an almost unprecedented, massive drought.
But we also look at how much the price of pigs has risen in the last year.
In this article we bring together the highlights of this year.
We imported maize for the first time
One of the biggest events was that this was the first year that the country did not produce enough maize for the farmers’ needs.
In modern times, we have never had a situation where we needed imports.
In an average year, we can expect to grow around 6 to 8 million tonnes of maize, but this year there has been a huge drought, which has increased the size of the areas where it is almost impossible to grow maize.
In 2022, the unprecedented drought has meant that only 2.4 million tonnes of maize could be harvested, an unprecedented level.
And this quantity will obviously not cover demand.
Hungarian farmers were saved by Ukrainian maize, which also meant that livestock farmers did not have to face major difficulties.
This was already evident in the summer, when in July half a million hectares in the Great Plain suffered damage that could not be reversed.
By August, almost nothing remained.
Both maize and sunflowers were affected, but the other two cereals, wheat and barley, were not spared.
Bankruptcy wave in small farms
The last droughts of this magnitude occurred in 2011 and 2012.
However, some claim that this year’s drought is nowhere near what it was then.
Most farmers have been talking of a bumper harvest all year.
The larger farms were, and of course still are, hoping for easy access to land.
In the summer, they were able to produce about half as much east of the Danube as in the west.
This means that while the harvest in the Danube region was 5-6 tonnes, in the east it was only 3 tonnes.
Here the combine harvester had almost nothing to harvest from the fields.
The annual wheat harvest was put at between 3.6 and 4 million tonnes, although even then there were doubts about whether the upper limit would be reached. 
In the end, it turned out that there was no money to be made on any cereals in the East this year.
Not only were sunflowers and maize unprofitable, but even wheat made a loss.
Of course, a year would not be a barrier for producers if they had all the reserves, but inflation has taken its toll here too.
The implementation of the tenders awarded in 2021 has therefore taken much more money than expected.
Some small farmers are certain to give up farming this year, with more and more land coming up for sale at the end of the year and early next year.
The field machinery market
Farmers are not sparing any money to improve their machinery.
In the first half of this year, more than HUF 62 billion was spent on new agricultural machinery and equipment.
This figure was of course helped by the subsidies available.
Even then, experts warned them that the war conflict would lead to a large price increase for both machinery and parts, but there was uncertainty about how much this would be.
In 2022, technological modernisation was taking place in domestic agriculture.
First quarter sales were up 50% compared to 2021.
Farmers spent more than 20 billion forints on parts, an increase of almost 40%.
Tenders to help them have played a huge role in this growth.
In relative terms, there was a significant increase in the sale of machinery for crop protection and the harvesting of fibre fodder.
In addition, the share of sales of loading machines and vine and fruit care machines was also outstanding.
Sales of tractors and combines also increased.
AKI’s report showed that the domestic market for agricultural machinery is developing steadily.
The domestic machinery fleet is becoming increasingly modern, thanks to the replacement of machinery in recent years.
Significant change in pork prices
According to KSH, domestic live pig exports increased by 6% between January and September compared to the same period last year.
At the same time, imports fell by 8% to just over 49 thousand tonnes.
The volume of pork sold on the international market increased by 1.5% and its value by 27% over the same period.
The AKI PÁIR data show that the producer price of Hungarian slaughter pigs, excluding VAT and transport costs, reached HUF 781/kg.
This represents an increase of 79% in November 2022 compared to the end of last year.
The same can be said for cut pork, where it was 79% higher than last year.
So there have been plenty of changes in agriculture and agribusiness this year.
Not only have prices risen, as farmers have also had to contend with drought.