Honey production and marketing strategies in Hungary

Árváné Ványi, Georgina – Kárpáti, László – Popovics, László – Vladimir, János

In Hungary the total annual investment into honey production and marketing amounts to 7600 million HUF on average, including costs of techno­logical and quality development, organisation and marketing. There are, however, costs even without the execution of a strategy, whose present level is around 1000 million HUF, which may increase in time to 2000 million HUF, adding up to an average of around 1500 million HUF. The additional annual investment on national level is around 6000 million HUF, which derives from a planned and probably successful strategy. However, additional costs asso­ciated with Hungary’s EU accession may emerge even without this strategy.

The additional production expected may on average amount to 25%, but it could reach even 65%. The additional income from the positive effects of honey on health has not been included in the calculations. Estimating the value of 1 ton honey including all value adding factors to be 1 million HUF, the additional annual value may range between 4400 million and 9000 million HUF. Taking into account the extent of investments, the additional value may vary between 1700 million HUF “loss” to 2900 million HUF “gain”. Further­more should beekeeping decline, about 6000 beekeepers would loose their job and demand unemployment benefits, which were not taken into account in the above reckoning. This would amount to a yearly sum of 3000 million HUF, thus the balance of the above measures is still positive. Considering that a good deal of the above investments would be required even without a definite strategy therefore the real benefits are worth even more than the above, and that is with neglecting the positive economic effects of honey on health. On the basis of these considerations, it is proposed that the above strategy should be accepted as soon as possible and the principles developed on its basis should serve as the foundation of a well-developed production and marketing action plan of future years.

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