This year’s biggest challenge for Latvia’s agriculture sector will be stabilising the financial situation, representatives of Latraps grain cooperative warn.
The agricultural cooperative says that after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war they completely ceased procuring Russian raw materials. Prices of raw materials went up considerably after Latvian farmers switched suppliers. This is why farmers put a lot of hope on the 2023 harvest – its quality and volume.
“This hope was torn apart step by step by the extreme weather conditions in 2023,” Latraps representatives say.
Farmers report that crops had a hard time getting through winter. After that there was unexpected frost in spring and drought,
which lasted almost three months in some regions in Latvia. The lasting rainfall in the second half of summer had an enormous impact on the quality of the crops and complicated harvests. The storm and intense hail observed in August 2023 destroyed what had survived in the first half of the year. Crops were destroyed on many fields.
Latraps explained that 2023 was the most challenging year for agriculture since the restoration of independence. Last year Latraps made efforts to stabilise the situation. The cooperative continued working on stabilising the situation and took on a portion of increasing costs of raw materials in order to provide farmers with the necessary raw materials at balanced and predictable prices.
Latraps representatives also mentioned that because of farmers’ growing solvency and liquidity challenges, the organisation looked for solutions to transfer Latraps buyers’ obligations to the next harvest cycle.
As for this year, Latraps notes that the biggest challenge will be stabilising the financial situation based on the lessons learned last year. Farmers will need to carefully reassess their risk-management models in order to reduce the influence of extreme weather conditions on their financial state.
Latraps mentioned that last year gave farmers an insight into how agriculture looks under climate change. For example the farming cooperative suffered a shortage of initial product processing and storage capacity, therefore, the largest investment goals in the coming years will be tied to increasing grain storage capacity in Latvia and infrastructure development, reducing the amount of carbon emissions.
Latraps also adds that demand has increased for information exchange between farmers and other sides: suppliers, service providers, buyers and representatives of the state. Farmers say having a quality information system can make everyday work much easier, whereas a low-quality system would make farming impossible.
According to Latraps, it is necessary to make public services more accessible for farmers as soon as possible,
as well as ensure convenient communication with public administration institutions and reduce the need for multiple data entries.
Latraps was registered in 2000. By the end of 2022 the cooperative had more than 1 190 members.
Also read: BNN ANALYSES | As 1 500 tractors roar in Vilnius, conundrum of aligning green and agriculture policies persists
Follow us on Facebook and X!