A conversation with Ringolds Arnītis, member of the board of the Latvian Agronomists' Association

Before we turned on the recorder, the idea was put forward that in Latvia, people who are not the most capable or competent are often appointed to or nominated for various positions. Why?

I link this to human nature: it is convenient to find people who are impressionable or belong to the political forces currently in power, where the main priority is not professionalism, experience, and knowledge. This does not benefit any sector of the Latvian national economy. That is our misfortune! Personally, I am very pleased with a few state-owned companies that are large and powerful, and where knowledgeable professionals work in management. But, as I mentioned, Latvia has problems with the selection of managers. Since I once had the opportunity to lead the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (in Paris), I noticed that elsewhere, experience, competence, knowledge, ability, energy, etc., are valued. I have also observed that in the Latvian business environment, capable and intelligent people do not apply for positions (in politics or other public spheres) because they know that "they will very quickly call you a thief or a fraudster," or attach a label to you that the person has nothing to do with, but will have to live with from then on.

Perhaps this is where the so-called “Bolshevik” background appears? If you live better, or you own something more, you are immediately written off as a parasite on the working people.

Undoubtedly, 50 years have left a devastating impact on us! However, the various “green ideologies” of the world seem to be having an equally devastating effect. Watching today's youth, I am concerned whether we have missed something very significant in the patriotic upbringing of the next generation or generations, namely, the knowledge and understanding: what has been our and Latvia's history, what is Latvia's nature and resources? One part of the new generation is extremely detached from real life, from practical knowledge: how production takes place, what happens in Latvia's fields and forests, how the Latvian budget is formed. Lacking such an understanding, it is easy to manipulate with utopian ideas about reserves, prohibitions, or restrictions. We all still live by the laws of nature, and no one will be able to change that. However, when I listen and see what some people stand for or defend, having listened to various types and sources of propaganda, my heart aches that we haven't noticed this in time. There are quite enough foundations that directly “pump money” in and find various organizations and associations through which to influence people: they protest, often without understanding what for. Of course, if you ask the protesters, it “will be clear” to them, but this “clarity” is often a story or image watched on a phone that is based on neither facts nor science, and is complete nonsense. For example, the children of people I know talk about how “milk is something terrible because the calf is taken from the cow, which is likened to a child taken from its mother, and we use the milk intended for it.” At the same time, soy and almond milk are “excellent and great.” But 95% of soy is grown as GMO, which these same milk-deniers oppose. A contradiction the young person does not notice, because they do not know! There are a series of things we have not told, shown, or taught the new generation.

Education. Teachers often submit to a certain flow or direction of information (not science, but specifically information, often narrow) and accept it uncritically.

These are the fundamental things we haven't “looked after.” Those who manage their land, who manage the forest, have not “looked after” what is happening to the understanding of values and processes. For example, this year is the International Year of Plant Health – a subject well known to me: against diseases, against pests, against various infestations. If you go to a school, you see the situation: it is clear to the student that you shouldn't litter in the forest, shouldn't cut it down, because that is bad, nature must be protected. The idea is correct, but terribly one-sided and narrow, because the fact that we in Latvia protect nature because it is our source of livelihood has been forgotten or deliberately hushed up. Young people have not heard about pests and diseases; all around, there is talk about spraying and mineral fertilizers, which are considered terrible! Hang on! Plants, like humans, want food (to eat). If we want a healthy organism, it must be fed! If we get sick – we must take medicine. If plants get sick – we must use plant protection products. Schools, for example, do not talk about the necessity to protect plants against pests or diseases to provide people with food.

How are these issues resolved in various organizations? How is it valued elsewhere?

As I mentioned, these issues have slipped by unnoticed because it seems self-evident to many: “if work is going on in the fields and forests, then the new generation understands everything too!” But times are different, interests are different – there are fewer young people left in the countryside, city dwellers do not come into contact with rural daily life, or do so very little. It often seems to a city dweller that money is in an ATM, milk and bread are in the store, food can be bought at a kiosk. If people used to laugh at such thoughts and depict them in caricatures, now it is reality! “Latvijas Valsts meži” (LVM) has good educational programs for teachers and young people, as well as children. I think they have understood that a few trees cut down in Riga, accompanied by scandals, are being attributed to all of forestry in the form of bans and restrictions. And that is why society must be educated! In this regard, farmers are only at the beginning of the road.

The European experience and situation is even more “distant” from the countryside…

Yes, but they rely a lot on their country's government! For example, in the Netherlands and Belgium, people's views are very different because there are many more inhabitants, less land, and almost every patch of land is used! A large part of the inhabitants of these coastal countries see land work daily – growing, tending, fertilizing, mowing. Of course, there are also ban-activists there, extreme movements, etc. But elsewhere, information based on research and experience is highly regarded; people cannot be convinced by loud slogans or mere benefits alone. We are too open a society to various nonsense because there has been no process of inheriting the experience of grandfathers. This leaves a damaging effect.

Currently, the “Green Deal” announced by the European Commission is topical. In agriculture, with the reduction of the volume of use of plant protection products and mineral fertilizers, with various bans, with an emphasis on increasing biological areas and management. It sounds beautiful, but by chasing general trends, we can be left looking like fools. Plant protection products and mineral fertilizers are an integral part of crop production. If we reduce them, we must therefore abandon the cultivation of specific crops, and harvests will also be lacking. For example, in France or Spain, a 50% reduction in the use of a plant protection product will create a completely different situation than in our country! Why? We use them minimally. In Latvia, this is a reduction in competitiveness, a decrease in farmers' and tax revenues, and real restrictions on agriculture. We grow and export grain, rapeseed, beans, which yield close to one billion euros. Must we abandon this? Elsewhere in Europe, it is a small change in the approach to management.

How to act?

We are not large, but as far as possible, we must look at whether we can and to what extent we can retreat, if we can. We must find Latvia's “personal” balance. We must take into account another problem: European representatives will not be coming to us to control everything all the time. But in Latvia, there are quite enough “Kangars” – over-compliant, over-zealous, and servile people who will report, complain, and write. We have already experienced this. Complaining in Brussels, Paris, Strasbourg… Instead of participating, looking for solutions, and helping, reports are written and instructions are awaited. Of course, international institutions have their own audit system, but most of the information is based on what our own “bāleliņi” (fellow countrymen) report and compile. If we followed the lead of various nature funds and biological activists, we would have to conclude that nothing grows here, it is a dead desert (a real desert is alive, by the way), there is nothing to breathe, and we should go live elsewhere. But in reality, you only need to drive out of Riga – fields, forests, clean water, fresh air! What is there to moan about?

But, unfortunately, a part of society lives by listening to slogans.

Not long ago, there was an active correspondence on social media regarding the real estate tax on land; in one comment, an employer expert asked – why is it necessary to cultivate and look after small meadows, because nothing grows there anyway, everything is destroyed, corncrakes have disappeared, only Roundup-poisoned land… This is written by a person who operates in and represents a serious employer organization! Another slogan! The person does not understand that if you do not look after a meadow, it won't take long before there are bushes instead of a meadow. All the biological diversity expressed in the slogans will stay there – in the bushes!

I recently read an angry entry on social media about spraying a field and that, once sprayed, it stank. If the chemicals used in field work or elsewhere smelled of roses, lilies, or pastries, many would have the desire to jump into that field to take pictures, and that would truly be bad! The same talk about spraying at night – tell me, should farmers now be called or considered second-class people who are allowed to work only after darkness falls? Farmers are knowledgeable and well-trained. Of course, there are violations, even intentional ones, but they should be punished for that!

The success of this spring's campaigns about bees and spraying was many calls to the police and other services, which really hampered the work of farmers. Television people prepare stories, talk about a national tragedy, but… as soon as you understand that it has neither evidence nor research. At the end of August, I read an article by the management of the beekeepers' association that there will be less honey because the spring was unfavorable, etc. Not a word about poisons! So… This is how society is agitated.

Usually, behind such activities hide some less visible but actually existing interests. For example, last year at a State Secretaries' meeting, legal amendments were announced regarding the Teiči reserve. The legal amendments actually provided for the end of agriculture in the reserve's buffer zone: specific plant protection products could no longer be used. It turned out that one of the well-known representatives of the Latvian Fund for Nature had bought a farm near Teiči and is engaged in organic beekeeping and imagined that other farmers would interfere with this work. More than 100 families live in the vicinity of the Teiči reserve, 15,000 hectares remain now… Where? I cannot name this anything other than greed! Of course, this can be perceived and publicized in various ways, but the character himself does not hide that he has been and talked to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM), opened office doors, and acted, etc. I want to emphasize – one (one!!!!) person thinks of something, goes, and “lobbies” rules in their favor, spitting on 100 families!

Let these 100 turn into organic farmers!?? Hang on! Organic farmers are quite a “closed club,” where the path for new members to get in is closed! I see greed as the only goal of the activity described, nothing else! And such a person expresses a message about values in front of TV cameras… What values?

A few years ago, a similar idea was voiced about exchanging the three-toed woodpecker for two families or one village…

Paradoxical: but the “phone readers and watchers” hardly know the three-toed woodpecker, have hardly been to Teiči, and hardly… For example, talking about the protection plan for the lesser spotted eagle species, during its discussion, I said that first, the farmer and forest owner must be thanked that they have managed the land in such a way that the eagle likes it there and feels good! So, the existing environment is liked by the eagle, it is an environment that is managed! …and a ban is “placed” on this environment! It is the farmer and the forest manager who take care of this environment, not a Riga resident or an employee of some foundation. The question is fundamental and, in my opinion, in absolute contradiction to the Constitution. Moreover, talk of compensation can be resolved quickly – the money must be taken from the funding allocated for solving environmental issues from European funds. That would be fair! Of course, there is no solution here!

Some time ago, the Forest Certification Council of Latvia called for voluntarily handing over certain private forest or field areas for nature conservation. There was no response. So…

Easy days are not to be expected in the coming years. The pressure will be great. Both the farmer and the forest manager will have to maneuver and try to operate. One thing I do want to emphasize: we must be able to cooperate! We must be united as much as possible! We must be able to tell the story of the circular economy clearly and loudly! I think neither farmers, nor forest managers, nor “peat-workers” have formulated their position yet. The so-called “green funds” have formulated theirs – to forbid and prohibit! But it is easier for them, because they earn money through public activities. There are few of them, but they are loud. Currently, there is a competition between various NGOs – who will forbid more, and louder, and stricter!

I recently participated in a discussion about rapeseed, which has recently become the “bad guy” – a monoculture and “depleting madness”! Stop! Not so long ago, it was an environmental protection initiative for biofuels. Now, rapeseed is grown for biofuel, and it is bad again.

I haven't formulated for myself what to call all the self-appointed experts. For example, songs of praise: how great and wonderful beavers are for Latvian rivers. As a fan of trout fishing, it is clear to me: in rivers with a beaver dam, all biological diversity along with the trout has vanished. I think many “alarmists” should get up from their chairs, sofas, or benches and go clean the river, and do so regularly! That does not happen!

People with revolutionary and unshakable conviction have many places where they can act and fight, for example, the Amazon basin, South Asia, etc. By fighting against Latvian farmers, the “fighters” forget one thing – our farmers compete in the market. For example, Ukraine is not far from Latvia. With their fertile soil and climate, pardon me, it can “wipe out ours in one go.” Our farmers and forest managers are just being dripped on: don't do this, you can't do that, we forbid something else, but in Ukraine, all of that is possible! The European Union has trade relations with Ukraine – they will produce instead of us. Will that be better? Every restriction only reduces competitiveness. Is that Latvia's state goal: to deliberately create advantages for the closest competitors within Latvia? Where will we end up? I believe that Latvian farmers and forest managers who live and manage in the countryside are green in their actions and conviction. I count myself among them.