While high prices are forcing some Hungarian milk-drinkers to somewhat extreme measures, some Hungarian farmers are saying that the “humiliatingly low” prices being offered for their fruits may lead to them blockading processing plants and wholesalers. According to conservative daily Magyar Nemzet, Magosz (National Union of Hungarian Farmers) official Gyula Budai yesterday said that if prices do not rise, farmers will establish cordons around their biggest customers and stay their until these firms raise their offers.
The farmers’ complaints of inappropriately low prices have led to an investigation by the Economic Competition Office, which is looking into why big purchasers were offering a nearly uniform price of Ft 51-61 (€0.21-0.26) per kilogram for sour cherries. The situation has also seen one particularly aggrieved fruit-grower begin to cut down 300 of his 720 cherry trees to protest the fact that the prices he received this year did not cover even half of his costs.
In addition to sour cherries, Budai said that the problem has “spread” to apples, with growers in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg and Hajdú-Bihar county being offered Ft 9 per kilo, compared to the Ft 50 they got last year, and could likely move on to apricots, grapes and plums.
Magosz also said it expects the price of wheat to drop to half of what it was last year, probably to Ft 34,000 per ton, putting cereal farmers in an even more desperate situation. Especially, we might add, if they don’t bake their own bread, as the price of bread and other supermarket goods are continuing to rise at alarming rates.
