Várható szerkezeti átalakulás a magyar mezőgazdaságban

Hungarian livestock farming lost its dynamism by the mid-1980s, and since the change of regime it has been in crisis. The unfavorable processes have further intensified after the accession to the EU. As a result, the balance between crop production and livestock farming has been disrupted, and the production structure of domestic agriculture has further simplified. According to some opinions, however, in recent years the most successful investment support applications have concerned livestock farming, which may result in a recovery of the sector. The aim of the study is to prove or disprove this. The hypotheses formulated relate to the fact that the increase in the proportion of crop production at the expense of livestock farming in Hungarian agriculture has stopped and may even reverse, and since livestock farming has remained on larger farms as a result of the transformations experienced in recent decades, successful livestock farming investments promote the strengthening of these larger farms, which also causes a change in the farm structure. The study analyses the following thematic areas related to the issue under study: the importance and role of animal husbandry; cost, price, income; subsidies; investments; farm size, production and farm structure. The results of the research prove that the formulated hypotheses are correct. None of the analyses of the thematic areas related to the issue under study refute, but rather strengthen our two assumptions that the process observed in the past few years, the rise of animal husbandry in agricultural product production and the transformation of the farm structure, will continue in the coming years. The consequence of all this will be that the position of larger farms that play a decisive role in animal husbandry will strengthen in the farm structure. Based on the results of the research, it can be stated that the use of investment subsidies has become more efficient during the period of the Rural Development Programme. This process must also be strengthened in the case of investments taking place within the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan that has been launched. The outlined changes help achieve the desired goal of increasing concentration in the sectors. The focus should be on building new – modern – livestock farms, and outdated technologies should not be preserved by supporting renovations.