Farmers who switched to barley instead of corn may face big trouble next year

What crop should farmers who have suffered from growing corn this year replace it with? And why are the purchase prices for cereal crops low? The online conference titled "Our Treasure, the Fertile Soil" held by the National Chamber of Agriculture (NAK) on December 3 included prestigious speakers, among them Tamás Petőházi, president of the National Association of Cereal Growers (GOSZ), who outlined the current situation of crop production, frequently looking ahead to the 2026 season. "The drought of 2022 made everyone realize that there is a big problem, as the corn yield on the Great Hungarian Plain was virtually destroyed. We thought that this would not happen again soon, but we had to deal with drought years in 2024 and 2025 as well," began Tamás Petőházi. This year, autumn barley (5.7 t/ha) and autumn wheat (5.5 t/ha) turned out relatively well, but corn again failed to meet expectations, and it could only be grown at a loss. The consequence of this was that farmers sowed ...