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Abstract
Prior to enlargement regulations and the subsidy system played an important role in
stabilising, especially, the livestock sectors, producers got used to national intervention
mechanism, and production became rather insensitive to market signals. This, along with
other shortcomings, caused serious problems in the process of opening the domestic markets
during the EU integration process.
In this paper, after discussing the evolution of the Hungarian agricultural policy, we focus on
the major agricultural sectors in the context of the development of agricultural and food trade
in Hungary after EU enlargement. Despite excess stocks of cereals, the prospects for the
major feed grain consuming sectors (i.e. dairy, pig meat and broiler meat production) to
expand look rather slim in the mid-term. Meat and dairy producers will face the burdens of
adjustment in the livestock sectors and the anticipated boom of biofuel production in
Hungary.