During the meeting, President Levits stressed that Latvia is a nation that successfully brands itself as green, therefore we need actual policies that encourage local farmers to make gradual transition to biological farming, which is one of the future goals of European Commission’s so-called European Green Deal: ‘The brand of Latvia is a brand of a green country and we need to make our policies greener, as well. We are making the right steps, change is already happening, but we need to set a clear timescale, so that we know when ‘our ship’ will reach the destination we call biological farming’.
According to President, too often discussions about economy and growth focus solely on profit and efficiency of investments. We should rather focus on the ‘big picture’, consider also social and common good of organic farming. For example, its positive effects on human health and environment.
Agricultural experts talked about the national and European dimension of Latvia’s biological farming development strategy, support programmes aimed at promoting switch to biological farming and raising awareness about one of the fastest growing industries in the world.
Mr Norkārklis underlined that there is a huge demand for biological farming products. It is constantly growing, and Latvia must efficiently adjust to these new global conditions. Industrial production is no longer considered viable and export markets are shrinking.
Mr Ķerus pointed out that we need better enforcement of existing biodiversity laws and forest policies. For example, cutting of forests should be prohibited during bird nesting season.
Director of Latvian Fund for Nature told about international studies conducted in Scandinavia, which show that transition to biological farming would have no negative effect on population consumption patterns.
