Post-socialist generation change in Hungarian farming

Abstract

This article uses a 2019 study of FADN-included farm operators in Hungary to explore the interrelated issues of farm succession and the ‘young farmer problem’ (too few young and too many old farmers). Both have gained in significance in today's Hungary (and other formerly collectivised countries of Central and Eastern Europe) as a generation of new private farmers reaches retirement age, roughly three decades after ‘system change’. Because research into the post-socialist transition and subsequent developments has identified the years of cooperative transformation themselves and subsequent EU accession as moments of opportunity for embarking on private farming, respondents were differentiated by ‘age-cohort’, whether they began private farming ‘in their prime’ at Year Zero (1992) or immediately following EU admission (2006) or were older or younger than these groups. Data on economic performance and education indicated that the classic ‘young farmer problem’ does not pertain: Hungarian farmers are old on average but also productive and highly educated. The questionnaire responses suggested that succession was a problem for which farmers were rather ill-prepared and ill-advised, and that the classic farmers' reluctance to hand over management and ownership had re-emerged. It concludes by speculating about different paths to modern farming.