News from the village by Dienas Bizness is not encouraging: "Prices for mineral fertilizers have significantly risen since February. Currently, the most important aid for green mass is ammonium nitrate. The price of nitrogen fertilizers was 416 euros per ton in February, 519 euros per ton in March, but in April it was 559 euros per ton...".
"It’s not that this problem isn’t being talked about in Europe, as mineral fertilizers are rising in price not only in Latvia. The misfortune is that the reaction is too slow and inactive," complain the villagers.
On May 10, the European Commission's fertilizer strategy was published, and it had little impact on the crisis situation. After its publication, the head of the local agricultural society 'Peasant Saeima', Maira Dzelzkaleja-Burmistre, stated in a press release: "Instead of canceling or at least temporarily freezing the new climate taxes on mineral fertilizers, the European Commission has already made the already high prices of mineral fertilizers 20% higher with its decisions."
"There is good news in the section of strategic decisions; at this moment, according to the rules promoted by the Ministry of Economics, the construction of biogas stations is being supported, which in the next three years will solve both the gas sufficiency problem and the fertilizer shortage. Moreover, one of the additional solutions is to develop fertilizer production right here in Latvia if gas production does indeed increase," the publication reports.
Nevertheless, the business weekly states that there is evident "another segregation of rural owners in Europe based on the principle: in the state with more money for subsidies, the farmers will survive."
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