GMO-free Hungary: blessing or curse?

There were hard debates on the GMO at the conference of Agrárszektor 2016. Policy and science clashed through serious arguments and counter-arguments. One thing is for sure: the prohibition of the agricultural use of GMO will not get out of the constitution for a long time, reports agrarszektor.hu.

Irreplaceable soy

Zoltán Bene, president of Karintia Kft., examined the Hungarian soy production in his opening talk. He said that 333 million tons of soy grew all around the world and only 5 million of it is validly GMO-free – and this can be a serious weapon in Hungary where only GMO-free soy can be grown. As Bene said:

“GMO-free, excellent quality Hungarian soy is welcomed in western-Europe.”

The soy growing territory of our country is the 5th in the EU, 61,000 hectare – the fact that the plant can be grown in such a large amount is partly due to the supports regarding the crop.

At the same time, the sowing area is facing a large increase in 2017: it can be seen from the circulation numbers that interests for the sowing-seed are extremely high again, this way the soy-growing fields can increase even above 80,000 hectare. If there is some luck with the weather, and it will not discourage the…