Water levels have decreased by many meters due to the installation of hundreds of thousands of wells.

Irrigation has a beneficial effect on the development of cultivated plants, but if water management is thoughtless, it can lead to a catastrophe. This year in Hungary, it has once again been proven that due to climate change, certain plant cultures are difficult to grow profitably even if they have been part of the traditional, familiar crop structure for decades. For example, in Békés, corn in 2025 still performed poorly, with average yields well below 2 t/ha that cover almost no cultivation costs. The main reason is the lack of irrigated areas. Hungary has made little progress in this area over the past decades, with approximately 110 thousand hectares irrigated out of the 5.1 million hectares of agricultural land (2 percent), and the size of legally authorized irrigable areas does not even reach 200 thousand hectares. The target is a 400 thousand-hectare limit, which would allow us to at least catch up with the European Union's average of 6-7 percent. However, improper, ...