Development opportunities of the Hungarian agrienvironmental payment system

Abstract

The agri-environmental measures of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) have recently taken a special orientation. While the measures themselves – basically through the prescriptions – try to serve environmental- and nature conservation aims, the beneficiaries of the measures – due to the well-known way of operation – can only partly interpret the subsidies as a payment for real ecosystem-services. Many farmers think, that these payments are really “only” subsidies, that can be conceived as a kind of top-up on the basic subsidy. The paper gives a short overview on the history of Hungarian Agri-environmental payment system, underlying the problems of each period. It shows in details the conception – developed by the authors – for agri-environmental measures of the Hungarian Rural Development Program between 2014-2020. The core elements of the concept are the prescriptions differentiated by land-use types. Choosing among them the farmers have the opportunity to create even farm-level measures. The proposed system focuses the payments on areas with major environmental and nature-conservation problems. It also helps in the promotion of environmentally aware farming.