In Hungary the average size of the 'large estates' is among the largest in Europe: about 3,200 hectares. This land concentration damages food sufficiency, leads to rural depopulation and has led to the expansion of large-scale monocultural agriculture and increasing social tensions in the Hungarian countryside. In 2010, the government followed through on its election promises and put 65,000 ha of state land available through a public tender. The aim was to support young local farmers and their families by offering them low-cost leases for 20 years. However, the tender process was plagued with irregularities and corruption. A series of scandals erupted after the announcement of the results of the first round of tenders as most of the land has been leased to Hungarian agro-businessmen and capitalists and cronies close to the governing party.

Kajászó, a Transdanubian village is the most extreme example of the abuses related to the public land lease tenders. While local applicant family farmers received not one acre, a single candidate from another village won all 428 acres of public land without having any farming experience at all.

In response, Kajászó's farmers organised themselves to claim local control of land and farmers rights. Their tactics were inspired by José Bové's visit to Kajászó that was carried out as a joint project of the European and Hungarian Greens. In a symbolic land-seizing gesture the farmers ploughed a stretch of the land that has been leased â in their judgment, illegitimately â to the winner of the tender and symbolically placed the land under the authority of the local farmers' council. They have also founded the grassroots Association of Farmers' Councils, to secure the interests of small-scale producers and have encouraged other communities to do the same.

This may be considered as a particular Hungarian form of land-grabbing.