Corn acreage in Hungary’s Békés County has fallen from 95,000 hectares in 2004 to just 34,000 hectares this year, according to József Bozó, vice-president of the Békés County directorate of the Hungarian National Chamber of Agriculture (NAK). He says climate change and lack of rainfall will eventually push corn out of the county altogether. What farmers will grow instead is still unclear.
Farmers had to harvest 20% of the county’s corn acreage for silage this year, while the remaining area yielded a county average of just 1.4 tonnes per hectare. Given those results, Bozó expects the area planted with corn to shrink further next year.
Hungary harvested 1.5 million tonnes of corn this year, compared with a usual average of 3–5 million tonnes. That roughly matches the annual capacity of one or two large ethanol-processing plants, and the country will need to import corn. However, a substantial decline in the pig population means considerably less animal feed is needed. Bozó also says sugar beet cultivation has essentially disappeared from Békés over the past 20 years.
Bozó explains: “Corn is also difficult to irrigate because, in intense summer heat, irrigation creates humidity that does more harm than good to the plant, while light rain struggles to reach the roots because of the foliage.”
Growers who installed drip irrigation achieved good results. However, installing it can cost as much as 50 million forints per hectare, while a single irrigation costs about 100,000 forints per hectare.
Of the county’s 430,000 hectares of crop-growing land, only 35,000 hectares can be irrigated. Since 2004, sunflower acreage has doubled and autumn barley acreage has tripled. Farmers can still earn income from sunflowers, but drought conditions over the past five years have led to sharp cost-cutting, and fertilizer use has fallen drastically.
Source: MTI. Photo: Unsplash.
