Vidzeme farmers share their experience with methods for improving soil health

On June 6, experts and the board of the Farmers' Council visited three crop farms of different profiles to see how farmers take care of soil health in practice and find new sources of income with healthy soil.

The farm “SIA Grīnis”, where Ed Noordam has been farming organically since 2015. One of the main findings of the farmer was that Latvia has extremely nutrient-poor soils. To change this, the farmer has been importing manure compost from the Netherlands for more than 7 years, which is used to improve soil organic matter, nutrient background and soil structure. During the visit, the farm's crop rotation and agrotechnical measures that the farm implements in soil cultivation to limit the spread of weeds as much as possible were also reviewed.

SIA “Tēraudiņi” is a farm that is engaged in crop production using the integrated crop production method on an area of more than 1000 hectares. Special attention during the visit was paid to the fact that potatoes are also grown on a very large area on the farm for economic feasibility and soil health purposes. Potatoes not only diversify income sources and thus risks, but also, as a plant of the nightshade family, improve crop rotation.

The farm SIA “Veģi” is engaged in grain farming on an area of several thousand hectares. During the visit, the development of the farm, future plans were discussed, and how large farms, using accurate accounting, planning and technology, are able to operate in an environmentally, climate and soil-friendly manner.

The event was organized within the framework of the project “iNNOVATIVE BUSINESS MODELS FOR SOIL HEALTH (NOVASOIL)”