Farmers are angry about the level of bureaucracy – "In the future, filling out Excel spreadsheets should also be included in farm work."

On Tuesday, April 18, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the direct payment regulations. They will regulate the application procedure, support rates and control mechanisms for support payments for the next five years. These regulations impose a large bureaucratic burden on every agricultural activity.

Currently, in order to receive the same level of support as last year, farmers almost have to become IT specialists - they have to fill out applications on two or even three platforms, and list: when they go to the field, what they do there and why, they have to manually enter farm invoices into the systems, and so on.

Juris Lazdiņš, Chairman of the Board of the Association “Farmers' Council”: "Not only is the bureaucracy worrying, but also its illogicality. At the moment, when there are about 3 months left until the harvest, regulations have been approved that regulate how this crop will have to be grown. The crop has been growing for at least half a year, and neither the crops nor the herds are official documents - work in agriculture cannot be carried out retroactively. It is shocking how deep a bureaucracy we are going to drive our country's entrepreneurs and farmers into.

Currently, it is difficult for Latvia to start meaningful negotiations with the European Commission, but even if it succeeds, all discussions stop at “Where is your research?” It is precisely because of the lack of research that we have not been able to adapt European conditions to our circumstances.

All of this has now led to a situation that we could not even imagine in 2004, when we joined the European Union – a large number of farmers are starting to consider the possibility of farming without applying for European direct payments.”