Latvian Political Monitor

Day No. 52 in the prime minister's chair – Zemgale farmers 🇱🇻. I couldn't post this video sooner because, unfortunately, someone stepped on the leg of our family's youngest member and broke it ☹️. This time the post will be longer because I saw and heard a LOT. Entrepreneurs, farmers, family farms, producers, municipalities, and people who create jobs and Latvia's economy every day. And again one conclusion repeated almost everywhere: Latvia does not lack enterprising people. Too often we are hindered by bureaucracy, labour shortages, and rules that force entrepreneurs to fight not for development but against the state. 🌱 ASNS pea protein factory in Staļģene. This is a very important project for Latvian agriculture. From one 🇱🇻-grown yellow pea, several high-value products can be created – protein isolate, other protein products, starch, and fibre. This is exactly what we need: not simply exporting peas, grains, or other raw materials, but processing them right here in Latvia and exporting a product with much greater added value. 💶 The project has invested 132 million euros: ➖️ €53.6 million – @AltumLV loan under the Large Investment Loan Programme; ➖️ €40 million financing from @RietumuDelfin bank. ♻️ Moreover, it is planned to use practically the entire pea. Even process water rich in organic substances will be used for biogas production, and the biogas for pea drying. 👷 Approximately 100 new jobs are planned. ASNS is an excellent example of how traditional agriculture combines with technology, science, and global food market trends. We need such factories all over Latvia! 🏭 Production is planned to start in the first quarter of 2027. But there is a fly in the ointment – ALTUM and ministry bureaucracy nearly killed the project and delayed its opening by at least 2–3 years. This is a serious public administration ailment – so that no one is responsible for decisions, such a mountain of papers, requirements, and approvals is generated that it is almost impossible to lift in normal business. This must be changed urgently. 🌾 LPKS LATRAPS – Eleja. @LATRAPS unites more than 1,220 members and is the largest Latvian farmers' cooperative and one of the most significant in the Baltics. 🇱🇻 It is a 100% Latvian farmer-owned company. The cooperative provides: ➖️ grain acceptance; ➖️ initial processing; ➖️ storage; ➖️ logistics; ➖️ sales to more than 30 countries worldwide. In my opinion, LATRAPS has all the potential to enter the 🇱🇹 Lithuanian and 🇪🇪 Estonian markets much more aggressively. Otherwise, Estonians and Lithuanians come to us, but we go to them too rarely. 🌾 Grain delivery point. The visit coincided with the peak of harvest. Weather has helped farmers this time – grain moisture in places is only around 14%, so it is possible to do without additional drying. 🚜 Farm “Paugurīši”. Again I saw a beautiful model of Latvian agriculture – a father and son running the farm together. Very similar to the Riekstiņi and Amatnieki farms met in Latgale: the father has enormous practical experience, the son has modern agronomist knowledge and a fresh perspective. I saw the harvest process and we talked about the real problems of farmers. ⚠️ One of them – the European Commission's emergency funding distribution to mitigate the consequences of the Middle East crisis. Latvia has been granted one of the lowest support levels in Europe. 🇱🇻 Latvian farmers are allocated only about €10/ha, while in the so-called “old” 🇪🇺 countries support reaches €15–30/ha. I need to see and hear this myself so that at the October and December European Council meetings I can speak not theoretically but with concrete examples from Latvian countryside. 🌾 Jura Lazdiņš's farm “Lazdiņi”. Juris Lazdiņš is the chairman of the board of the association “Zemnieku saeima”, and the conversation was very specific. 💸 Mineral fertilizer prices have increased by 30–60% compared to last year. One of the significant reasons is the 🇪🇺 CBAM – the carbon border adjustment mechanism, which also affects imported mineral fertilizers. Additional costs already reach up to €157/t. At the same time: ➖️ grain prices on exchanges remain low; ➖️ fertilizers are becoming more expensive; ➖️ fuel is rising; ➖️ new levies are coming; ➖️ environmental requirements are growing; ➖️ fertilisation is being restricted. Meanwhile, farmers outside the 🇪🇺 use cheaper raw materials, fuel, and fertilisers. If we continue to unilaterally raise European farmers' production costs, we will squeeze our own agriculture out of the market. Under this scenario, several base crops in Latvia will simply no longer be profitable to grow. ❗Main farmer problems I take with me to work: ➖️ we must fight for fairer payments for Latvian farmers in the 🇪🇺; ➖️ CBAM's impact on mineral fertilisers must not make 🇪🇺 farmers uncompetitive; ➖️ part-time work regulations and minimum social contributions greatly hinder seasonal work; ➖️ the simplified tax regime for seasonal field workers must be expanded – legal work must be simpler, not more complicated. The Cabinet issue is stuck – it will have to be moved; ➖️ in public food procurement, we must not reach a situation where the only criterion is the lowest price and the local producer is squeezed out; ➖️ the planned increase in railway freight tariffs by about 25% threatens to shift even more grain transport to roads; ➖️ the requirement for diesel fuel to contain at least 6.5% biodiesel or advanced biofuel also in winter increases costs and raises concerns about agricultural machinery. Regional visits continue @Apvienotais_

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The situation with foreigners in Latvia is much, much, much more serious than it seems from each person's personal point of view. Because the real scale of the threat is hidden from us by existing politicians and the media. There is a possibility that they themselves don't even realize it and have long since lost control of the situation. Latvia is perishing, and it is happening live on air. This article on the Telos portal helps open eyes a little (in the first comment). MMN is for them leaving. The word 'deportations' is disliked by many, but for Latvia's survival there is only one precondition: they must leave here, and there are no other options. Unfortunately, Kulberg's party AS will not help there, because they represent the interests of some big businessmen (LDDK and LTRK), whom they have brought here for their own needs. But MMN will cooperate only with those parties whose hand will not tremble on this issue and whose heart will be for preserving Latvia for our grandchildren too.

That, of course, applies to everyone else, but not to @AndrisKulbergs himself and his @Apvienotais_ list. The usual and banal story - a certain category of people is convinced that they are a more special category, that there is no need to answer for their words and deeds, because they are higher beings; if some scoundrel dares to ask for accountability, then they can be sent... to the PDz. But what else can be expected from a team that appointed police complaint officer @EdvardsSmiltens as Minister of Justice.

This indicates possible self-control problems of @AndrisKulbergs, inability to distinguish public communication from private emotions, and difficulty understanding that it is not only about the specific journalist. It is about the ability to be proper towards the taxpayer-funded budget and the ability to answer for one's actions and expenditures.

Why does the head of government @AndrisKulbergs avoid answering the question and instead choose a familiar, personal attack? And the question is essential.

It seems it's come to the point that the state should create something like a financial inquisition and then go through all these strange-named NGOs' strange 'projects.' I would even be ready to work in such a thing. https://t.co/lDOGSJJ6EM

wow that's how the prime minister answers when asked whether campaign events, meetings with voters, photo ops on combines etc for whole days, on a working day was a business trip or was a day off declared?

@instant_mk @VisockisJuris @Apvienotais_ Very well and long discussed. I am chairing the meeting, and everyone should be given the opportunity to speak. But when speaking, there must be discipline, because the time is 2 hours, in which conclusions, tasks, and next dates must be set. Discipline must be maintained and one must focus on expressing the thought and message.

Leitān, I think you have already very well proven and confirmed that you are already ready and mature to professionally move to a higher journalism league, and we would all appreciate your work in the magazine Private Life. You are good at it.

@guntarsv In Latvia, among political observers there are many specialists, many journalists and investigators, but very few politicians or politically minded people.

@katrinailjinska questions and remarks instead. But Andris Kulbergs' scolding about sexism only shows how sick part of the NGOs are. Funding should be stopped and granted only to the extent of private donations, that would put everything in its place.

@andrisg15 Our list is not about Kulbergs; the MMN list is to unite people with common sense and get the electoral reform through.

@JanisIkstens With the method proposed by MMN, he would have entered the Saeima as a non-partisan and would not have wasted energy trying to squeeze in and intrigue with all those party-losers.