Boosting the competitiveness of agricultural production in Hungary through an innovation system

The final versions of the European Union’s (EU) support schemes and funding instruments for the 2014-2020 budgeting period have not yet been prepared. What is final, though, is that the ten-year Lisbon Strategy which aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of the EU ended in 2010. In addition to three priorities (smart, sustainable and inclusive growth), the recently launched Europe 2020 Strategy has set five headline targets to be reached, one of them being an increased investment in research and development. This is evidently a difficult challenge owing to the limited economic capacity of individual EU Member States. A considerable share of agricultural production activities are performed by small- and medium-sized enterprises and farmers who face difficulty in reaching the level of concentration need to gain market advantage. Consequently, it is imperative to establish a system that can maintain close connections with producers and improve innovation activities. Without such a system, a significant growth of added value cannot be foreseen in Hungarian agriculture. This paper describes a technology development system that incorporates three elements (measurement of inputs in space and time, market-focused technology development and a self-teaching information system for farmers) and that could be used in rural development, primarily in the area of agricultural production. While developing the system, we relied on experience gained from the operation of previous agricultural production systems and also considered the specific local conditions with the aim of offering a potential solution to meeting the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy.