Hungary will soon devote one million hectares of its farm area to crops for biofuel production, and the recent European gas shortages served as an added incentive, the Agriculture Ministry said.

“The time is not far off when farmers will cultivate these (biofuel materials) on one million hectares,” State Secretary Andras Pasztohy said. The government said late last year it hoped to take at least 15 per cent of grain output off the market by converting it into fuels like bioethanol, within three years, and that the aim was to divert up to 300,000 hectares initially. Hungary needs to reduce its huge grain stocks to ease pressure on silos. It harvested its second big crop in a row in 2005 from 2.9 million hectares. The landlocked country is also more dependent than most others in the EU on Russian gas imports, and the recent shortages after a row between Moscow and Kiev showed it had to find alternative energy sources.
“For us (in agriculture) this Russian-Ukrainian row about not sending enough or tapping gas has been a good thing,” Pasztohy said.