As widely expected, at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, August 5th the Latvian government decided to declare an emergency situation in agriculture throughout Latvia until November 4, 2025, in order to tackle the consequences of frost, rain, and floods over recent months.
Despite the dramatic-sounding nature of the declaration, it is principally a technical measure that allows faster funding to be unlocked.
Prime Minister Evika Siliņa said:
“It is important to support farmers in the current situation, when the rains have severely affected a large part of the countryside, the harvest has been damaged and farmers are suffering losses. We have made a decision in the government to declare a state of emergency. We will ease the requirements and thus mitigate the consequences to help the industry recover.”
As a result of the decision, the State Revenue Service will be able to refrain from penalising farmers for failure to make payments due to adverse meteorological conditions in 2025. In turn, credit institutions and other financial institutions, taking into account the status of the emergency situation, will be able to apply various measures, such as deferring loan payments, reviewing interest payments, and changing payment schedules without penalties.
While other parts of Europe have endured searing temperatures and drought conditions, in Latvia the principal problem has been seemingly unending rain.
Minister of Agriculture Armands Krauze said: “Prolonged rains since May have had a very negative impact on the agricultural sector in Latvia – this year’s harvest has suffered significantly and may not be harvested… If it previously seemed that the problems affected only part of Latvia, now a very difficult situation has developed throughout Latvia.
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