First nutrition, then education: schoolchildren will stop being fed the cheapest 0 3

According to Deputy State Secretary Juris Zivarts, food purchases cannot be evaluated solely by price, as supporting local producers ultimately benefits the entire country—from jobs to taxes.

Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Juris Zivarts noted in the TV24 program "Nacionālo interešu klubs" that the path to developing an action plan was not easy, but concrete steps have now been taken for its implementation.

"Before we arrived at this action plan, we worked quite actively to identify what the problems actually are. And we spoke not only with schools but looked at the situation in the country as a whole—including the army and hospitals," Zivarts explained.

He emphasized that this issue concerns not only the Ministry of Agriculture but is also closely related to the Ministry of Health, which sets the nutritional requirements in schools. Therefore, joint work between both parties is particularly important.

"As the Ministry of Agriculture, we cannot act alone; we need to work together with the Ministry of Health, which determines what nutrition in schools should be like. So we need to go hand in hand," said the Deputy State Secretary.

One of the key aspects Zivarts mentioned was the necessity of not evaluating food purchases solely by price. Local production creates jobs and provides tax revenues, so in the long term, it is beneficial for the entire society. "Therefore, sometimes you want to say: yes, the price is different, but let’s think—how much will we get in taxes here in Latvia if the product is grown locally?" Zivarts emphasized.