The agriculture ministry has submitted to parliament draft amendments to 24 laws regulating agriculture with the aim to tighten the protection of arable land, support farming using irrigation and reducing the administrative burdens on farmers, István Nagy, the minister, said in a statement on Wednesday. The amendments on arable land include incentives for boosting brown-field investments and increasing the land contribution as well as the land protection fine, according to the statement. The amendments also include increasing the size of land under irrigation and maintaining those that already use the technology, the minister said, adding that selling these plots for other type of use will be banned with the exception of investments supporting irrigation. They also include upping the budget of the fund for agriculture damage compensation using prospective EU resources in response to an increasing number of applications by farmers hit by weather extremities, as well as reducing the administrative burdens of seed producers and anglers, said Nagy in the statement.