At an extraordinary Cabinet of Ministers meeting held by written procedure on Tuesday, 5 August, the government considered an order drawn up by the Ministry of Agriculture on the impact of this summer's devastating rainfall and flooding on Latvia's agricultural sector, and decided to declare a state of emergency in agriculture across the whole territory of Latvia until 4 November this year.

As a result, the State Revenue Service will be able, within the scope permitted by law, to waive penalties for failure to fulfil statutory obligations in the case of farmers who have suffered from adverse weather conditions in 2025. Credit institutions and other financial institutions, meanwhile, will be able to apply a range of solutions for farmers who have suffered from adverse weather conditions in 2025, given the state of emergency — for example, deferral of loan principal, revision of interest payments, changes to payment schedules without penalties and so on.

Likewise, other Latvian and international partners bound by contract will be able to consider waiving penalties for those farmers who have suffered from adverse weather conditions in 2025.

Minister for Agriculture Armands Krauze:

"The prolonged rainfall since May has had a very damaging effect on the agricultural sector in Latvia — this year's harvest has suffered considerably and it may not be possible to gather it in. Grain, rapeseed and peas are already sprouting in the ear and in the pod, vegetables are rotting in the soil, and the waterlogged ground makes it impossible to drive heavy machinery onto the fields to bring in the harvest. While it previously seemed that the problems affected only part of Latvia, a very grave situation has now developed across the whole country. The situation is extremely difficult — either there will be no harvest at all, or it will be of such low quality that it can only be used as animal feed rather than food. What is more, every branch of agriculture is feeling the effects of the weather — livestock farming, cereal growing, vegetable growing, fruit growing and others. This situation threatens farmers' ability to meet their financial and delivery obligations, particularly in exports, where cereals are one of Latvia's most important export products. Failure to honour contracts can have serious legal and financial consequences, affecting the sector's reputation and the country's export capacity."

Since May 2025 Latvia has been hit by widespread and prolonged rainfall, leaving the soil waterlogged and water standing in the fields, with large pools of water on farmland and in lower-lying areas, destroying part of this year's harvest or substantially reducing yields on land under crops. In places where the harvest promised to be good, combine harvesters and other farm machinery now cannot get onto the waterlogged fields at harvest time. If the harvest cannot be gathered in, this will be the third year in a row of heavy losses for farmers.

At the same time, farmers are urged to continue submitting information to the Rural Support Service about areas affected by the adverse conditions, indicating the extent of the affected land and the crops concerned. The Ministry of Agriculture has already drawn the European Commission's attention to the grave situation in Latvian agriculture and has called for the losses suffered by affected Latvian farmers to be compensated from the EU budget once the damage has been assessed.

"The losses currently estimated at 63 million euros do not yet include the damage caused by the rainfall over the past two weeks. That is why we approached the European Commission early on with a request for EU support, and we will do so again with the figures from the past week — we will supplement the information already submitted by adding the latest data on how the situation is developing," says Minister for Agriculture Armands Krauze.

The order "On declaring a state of emergency" will come into force on the day after its publication in the official gazette Latvijas Vēstnesis.