Agriculture

Our series of infographics, based on the most important data from the Hungarian-language publication Hungary, 2024 provides a comprehensive picture of the social and economic state of our country and the main characteristics of our environment. The next infographic in the series presents the main data of the sectoral overview. The English extract from the publication is available here: Hungary, 2024, and the full Hungarian-language version here: Magyarország, 2024.

Hungary’s GDP increased by 0.5% amid global challenges in 2024. The performance of goods-producing industries lessened, while that of service-providing ones rose, which shows the duality of economic trends. Household consumption picked up, which was considerably encouraged by the purchasing power of earnings growing again with the inflationary wave calming down. Besides, the data series reveal that the level of employment reached another peak.

According to popular tradition, 29 June, Peter’s and Paul’s Day, is the beginning of harvest, wheat becoming ready for cutting around that day. Hungary is one of the pantries of Europe, a substantial part of the production of a quantity amply exceeding the internal demand (typically some half of wheat) being sold on external markets. Following the decline after the regime change, the domestic average yields of ear cereals dynamically rose, which is proven by all of the 10 years with the highest specific yield for barley and rye and seven years – including the record, 2021 – for wheat following 2010.

Hungary’s agriculture contributed to the gross value added of the national economy to a higher extent than the EU average (1.6%), by 2.8%, according to preliminary data, in 2024. A total of 12.6 million tonnes of cereals, 16% less than in 2023, were harvested on 2.2 million hectares. 1.8 million tonnes of sunflower were produced, with which Hungary became the largest sunflower producer in the European Union.

Bees are useful not only for honey production but a large part of the world’s agriculture also depends on them: by their pollinating activity they influence the reproduction of many plants. On the initiative of the Hungarian National Association of Beekeepers, the Day of Bees is held on 30 April from 1994 in Hungary, since life starts to flourish in beehives at around this time. The UN declared 20 May as World Bee Day from 2018, to draw attention this way as well to the importance of beekeeping. In addition to its use for food, honey is one of the oldest natural medicinal products, having about 70 kinds of curative effects as we know today.

The total output of agriculture was above 4.0 thousand billion forints in 2024, being 8.0% lower than in the previous year. The lessening resulted from a combined narrowing of 4.4% in the total volume of production and of 3.8% in the price level. The volume of crop production was 11% smaller and that of livestock production 4.9% larger. The lessening in production affected almost all product groups, except for potatoes, live animals and animal products. The performance of agriculture became lower first of all owing to the weather with a lack of precipitation and the summer drought, which factors held back crop production. The expanding volume of livestock production did not compensate for the effect of the lessening producer price level of the sector.

The output of agriculture exceeded 4 thousand billion forints in Hungary in 2022, which was 19% higher than a year earlier. The growth was due to a 44% increase in prices. Owing to the weather with little precipitation, there was a decrease in the harvest of all crops, and a significant rise in expenditure hindered the performance of livestock production, too. Hungary made up 1.9% of the EU’s agricultural output. The net amount of subsidies on domestic production was 809 billion forints.