Episode 2 of Fields of Power moves from the aisles of a Hungarian supermarket into the hidden machinery of a political-economic system where land, food, and power are tightly intertwined. Péter and Ian begin by tracing the products of powerful political-economic elites – Hungary's oligarchs – whose companies dominate everything from dairy to wine. But the question they pursue is bigger: how did land become the key to their power, and why does it matter for Hungary's future?

Episode 2: The Land Grab Chronicles

The episode shows how these elites used state-engineered land auctions to accumulate vast tracts of farmland, a process made highly profitable by EU subsidies that reward ownership rather than cultivation. Drawing on the investigations of former state secretary József Ángyán, it reveals how fields intended for family farmers were channelled instead to regime loyalists.

What emerges is more than a story about property: it's about how land grabbing undermines democracy, weakens food sovereignty, blocks climate-resilient farming, and shapes the future of Hungary and Hungarians.

What looks like a dispute over farmland turns out to be something much larger. Episode 1 of Fields of Power begins with the story of Kishantos, an organic farm south of Budapest and opens into a wider investigation of land grabbing, power, and the rise of authoritarian politics in Hungary.

Episode 1: Farms & Fortune

Fields of Power begins at Kishantos, a once-celebrated organic demonstration farm and folk school in rural Hungary. In this episode, we follow the story of Éva Ácsné, who spent decades building a model of ecological farming, education, and community, only to see the land seized and crops destroyed after a government land tender handed the fields to politically connected newcomers.

Through Éva's experience, we open up a bigger story: how the privatisation of state-owned agricultural land in the 2010s helped consolidate authoritarian power around Hungary's ruling elite. We hear how land – once imagined as the basis of sustainable livelihoods and local democracy – became a tool for wealth accumulation, patronage, and political control.

Alongside Éva's testimony, investigative journalist Gabriella Horn helps us trace how Hungary's farmland moved from state cooperatives to private hands, and how EU agricultural subsidies made land ownership itself extraordinarily profitable – even without farming it.

What happened in Kishantos is not just a local tragedy. It reveals how struggles over land use and ownership matter for democracy, and how democracy can literally erode from the ground up.

This episode sets the stage for the series' central questions:

What happens when control over the land shifts away from communities? And how does this loss help fuel the rise of illiberal, right-wing and authoritarian politics?