In 2020, there were 2.3 thousand large agricultural holdings in Latvia with a standard indicator of more than EUR 100 000 per year, farming 51% of agricultural area.
Medium-sized holdings (with a standard indicator of EUR 15-99.9 thousand per year) numbered 7.9 thousand and accounted for 26.3 % of agricultural area, while 58.8 thousand holdings (with a standard indicator of EUR 15-99.9 thousand per year) accounted for 26.3 % of agricultural area, according to provisional results of the Agricultural Census 2020 compiled by the Central Statistical Bureau (CSP).
In 2020, a total of 185.4 thousand persons were employed in agriculture, of whom 155 400 or 83.8 % were permanent and 30 000 or 16.2 % were temporary.
133.7 or 86.1 % of those permanently employed were owners and their family members.
Since 2001, when the first agricultural census after regaining independence took place, the number of people permanently employed in agriculture has decreased by 110.1 thousand. or 41.5 %.
88.7 % of those employed in agriculture worked part-time, i.e. less than 1840 h per year. In 2001, 17.5 thousand or 11.3 % of the employed worked full-time in agriculture, a decrease of 13.5 percentage points compared to 2001 Part-time work is predominant on crop farms, where seasonal work is typical.
93.1 % of holdings last year were managed by the owners themselves, 3.7 % by another family member, 1.7 % by someone outside the family and 1.5 % by the owner’s spouse.
60.3 % or 41.6 thousand holding managers were over 54 years of age, of whom 39.5 thousand were also holding owners. 3.6 thousand, or 5.2 % of holding managers were in the 18-34 age group.
In 2020, 49.7 % of holding managers had only practical experience in farming, that is 20 percentage points less than 20 years ago. Compared to previous agricultural censuses, the number of managers with vocational or vocational secondary education in agriculture and basic training in agriculture has increased to 22.4 % and 20.7 % respectively. However, only 7.2% of farm managers still have a higher education qualification in agriculture.
In 9.2 % of cases, the holding manager had received additional agricultural training in the last year.
The number of organic farms has increased by 19.9% over the last 10 years. In 2020, Latvia had 4 000 farms using organic farming methods, farming 285.5 ha or 14.5 % of agricultural land, twice as many as in 2010.On organic farms, the largest areas are grassland (46.3%), arable grassland (23.4%) and cereals (22.2%).
The number of organic livestock is also increasing In 2020, 26.3% of cattle, 13% of dairy cows, 39.5% of sheep, 22.5% of goats and 1.2% of laying hens were organic.
The main areas of specialisation on organic farms in 2020 were livestock farming excluding dairy farming (29.7%), dairy farming (22.1%) and mixed crop-livestock farming (18.6%). In turn, 36% of organic farms specialised in dairy farming in 2010.
Only 51% of agricultural land is used by large agricultural holdings in Latvia
