Field work cannot be done remotely without traveling on roads!

As spring approaches, signs restricting the weight of road vehicles are placed on many gravel roads throughout the country. Unfortunately, these signs in many places prohibit agricultural activities, feeding animals, cultivating fields, fertilizing, and sowing.

Restrictions are gradually introduced every year in all regions of the country – approximately 10,000 km of national roads, by installing prohibition road signs that limit the maximum gross vehicle weight, mostly to 10 tonnes. Municipalities also act similarly with the road networks under their responsibility, where 5-tonne mass restriction signs are also installed.

Currently, milk trucks and animal carcass trucks are allowed to travel on gravel roads, while other farmers are fined if they drive their tractors to their fields, where there are 5, 7 or 10 ton weight restriction signs on the roads. Sometimes it seems that the easiest solution is not to fix the road or clean the ditches, but to simply put up weight restriction signs, which tend to remain even until summer.

Juris Lazdiņš, Chairman of the Board of the Association “Farmers' Council”: “During this state of emergency, it is possible to work remotely in many sectors, however, agriculture, crop production and livestock farming are not among the sectors where this would be possible. By placing signs restricting the mass of road transport, municipalities seem to believe that farmers can maintain their crops remotely. During this pandemic, the flow of information is very fast, so we believe that we should follow the real situation on the roads and make decisions more dynamically. Farmers are not interested in intentionally damaging these roads, because a large part of municipal roads were once repaired with the help of farmers and even today farmers help maintain these roads. Agriculture is one of those sectors that creates jobs in rural regions, pays taxes and produces goods for export. In this state of emergency, there should be no attempt to maliciously punish farmers for starting seasonal work. Therefore, we call on municipalities, VSIA “Latvijas Valsts ceļi” and the Ministry of the Interior to be understanding and give farmers the opportunity to carry out spring field work. In cases where there are signs on your roads, we encourage you to write applications to the local municipality, if it is a municipal road, or contact the relevant representative of the VSIA “Latvijas Valsts ceļi” to assess the validity of the vehicle weight restrictions.”