From the 2026 budget audit
The central state tops up a service primarily funded locally — held flat.
Field guard services patrol agricultural land against crop theft. The 178 millió Ft central top-up is frozen: the core service is municipal and landholder-funded.
Roughly 43 Ft per taxpayer per year — 178 millió Ft total — a central supplement to a property-protection service whose principal funders are municipalities and the landholders whose crops are guarded.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: field guards patrolling agricultural land, reducing crop theft for the landholders whose fields are covered. The unseen: the gradual shift of the marginal cost toward those who benefit directly — the landholders and municipalities — rather than the national taxpayer.
Objection
"Crop theft is a real problem in rural Hungary — cutting the central supplement would leave rural communities worse off."
Answer
The nominal freeze does not cut the line; it holds it at its current level while the local and landholder share carries the marginal cost. Property protection is the kind of function that belongs closest to those whose property is protected — municipalities and landholders have both the interest and the appropriate instruments to fund it.
Share if you think local property protection should be funded locally.
The analyst's verdict
Special support for field guard services
Rationale
Field guard services patrol agricultural land against crop theft and field damage. There is a defensible property-protection element here — protection against theft is closer to a rights-protection function than the sectoral-subsidy lines. But field guard services are organised and substantially funded at municipal level and through landholder contributions; this line is a small central top-up rather than the core of the service. Nominal freeze holds the central contribution flat while real-terms discipline applies and the municipal-and-landholder share carries the marginal cost.
Transition mechanism
Hold the nominal allocation; no indexation.
Affected groups
Field guard services and the landholders they serve; no immediate change.
Free Society Institute
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