Organic Farms and Agricultural GHG Emissions in Latvia

Summary

At the end of 2015, there were 3 635 organic farms in Latvia, which was 158 more than in the previous year, and the number of certified organic farms was steady over the last six years. The organically certified area was 237 462 ha, or approximately 12% of the total UAA in the country, which was 14.38% more than in 2014. After the Paris Summit on Climate Change held at the end of 2015, Latvia joined the initiative “4‰” proposed by France, the purpose of which was to increase the organic matter content of soil and contribute to the absorption of carbon by the soil through agricultural activities being appropriate under the local conditions from the economic, environmental and social aspects. Thus the application of organic farming methods in agricultural production is one of the possibilities to reduce GHG emissions, as the potential of organic farming to absorb carbon in soil and aboveground biomass is higher than that of conventional farming because most of the year fields are covered with green cover. According to a number of researchers, nitrous oxide emissions from organically managed soils are 492 ± 160 kg CO2 eq. ha−1a−1 smaller than from non-organically ones. The difference in emissions from arable land reaches 497 ± 162 kg CO2 eq. ha−1a−1. However, if measured per unit of crop yield, nitrous oxide emissions are greater by 41 ± 34 kg CO2 eq. ha−1a−1 DM (Skinner et al. 2014). The research aims to characterise the organic farming practices of farms surveyed within the present research, identify the GHG emissions produced by the farms and assess the farms’ contribution to GHG emission mitigation in Latvia.