Farmsubsidy.org is holding a conference in Budapest- publicity of farm subsidies in focus

Farmsubsidy.org was established 18 months ago in Denmark and to this day is a program controlled by the International Center for Analytical Reporting (DICAR), whose aim is to obtain and relay data for the public regarding farm subsidies: who receives and how much and on what grounds? This data is of public interest and must be made public by Hungarian law as well.

In Hungary, it is the task of the Agricultural and Rural Development Agency (ARDA) to distribute, through competition, the money coming from the European Union, which is supplemented from the Hungarian budget. It is also their task to make public all data of public interest connected to farm subsidies. Here and here you can find the summary of Hungarian SAPARD and AVOP subsidies, but unfortunately they don’t include the contacts of supported people or the year of the disbursements. This data was only made public after the Hungarian Commissioner of Data-Protection published his stance, which is: ’In order for the freedom of information to prevail, it is important for data regarding EU-subsidies, hence ARDA’s registered supportive data to be made public. I can not accept that ARDA doesn’t abide by the obligation of public disclosure. I request ARDA to make public data of public interest in connection to subsidies and to inform me about their arrangements.’ ARDA’s reaction was an official statement on their website.

On the 25th of January, 2007 Mr. Jack Thurston (co-founder of Farmsubsidy.org) will hold his presentation at CEU.

On the 26-27th of January, 2007 Farmsubsidy.org will hold a conference in Budapest, where achievements and plans for the future will be discussed by the participants.