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Latvia's Lost Harvest: Floods Wipe Out Crops · Cereal Killers

• 0:00
  Hello there and welcome back to Serial Killers, the podcast all about the pest,
• 0:04
  diseases, weeds and problems of arable crops.
• 0:07
  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Eutrema Limited.
• 0:11
  We make premium fertilisers, interesting biostimulants and organic biopesticides.
• 0:18
  Have you had a bad year in your crop? Well, spare a thought for the farmers of Latvia.
• 0:25
  Yes, they have had a particularly bad year. and
• 0:28
  they've lost hundreds of millions of euros of crop
• 0:31
  this year and the reason i'm bringing
• 0:34
  up latvia is that it seems to
• 0:37
  be the they're a year behind and although
• 0:41
  it's mainland europe you think they would have had the same weather conditions
• 0:45
  as here in the uk however the the crop seems to have been suffered the exact
• 0:51
  same conditions as last year so they're the onions latvian onions will disappear
• 0:55
  before next season and the same applies to many other vegetables.
• 0:59
  Carrots and cabbages failed after heavy spring rain flooded fields and washed
• 1:04
  away the seeds and then late excessive rainfall meant that you couldn't care
• 1:09
  for the crops so put down pesticides things like this and harvesting was almost impossible.
• 1:15
  So the potatoes will really be bad they'll start to rot and so Latvia will have
• 1:21
  to import a lot of crops in from elsewhere and the price of,
• 1:27
  vegetables and staples will increase. So Latvia is interesting because it's
• 1:33
  described as being the climate frontline zone where wet and cold air masses
• 1:37
  collide, creating storms, floods and unstable farming conditions.
• 1:42
  So it's a bit, it's the canary in the coal mine in Latvia, so watch that space.
• 1:47
  So keep an eye out for Latvia.
• 1:48
  It's an interesting Eastern European farming country.
• 1:52
  Another interesting country is Estonia, really
• 1:55
  massively high organic production in
• 1:59
  estonia a lot
• 2:02
  of people theorize why this one of them is that they say
• 2:05
  that it's they never really got going after the soviet union
• 2:08
  so the old ways of growing were still implemented
• 2:11
  i think that's partially true also partially true it's nordic country estonia
• 2:16
  so it's high up there next to finland and so and very high education rates and
• 2:24
  a very high-tech country comparatively compared to the rest of eastern europe and so,
• 2:29
  perhaps they've got more of a demand for organic foods as well so like but this
• 2:34
  podcast today was on latvia and interesting comparison to the current situation
• 2:39
  in the uk where everything was about.
• 2:41
  Drought and soil water deficits and high temperatures
• 2:44
  in latvia there was very much the
• 2:47
  uk 2024 scenario where we
• 2:50
  had waterlogged conditions and muddy mess
• 2:54
  and be interesting to know which did you prefer did you
• 2:57
  prefer 2024 or 25 leave a
• 3:00
  leave send me a message and i'll do a follow-up on the next
• 3:02
  episode okay short and sweet one today previous
• 3:07
  no politics in this episode and i'll see
• 3:10
  you again on the next episode if you can leave a review
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  bother leaving review sit back and relax and listen to another podcast
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• 3:30
  has no effect on podcast charts all right thank you very much for listening
• 3:34
  if you've got any issues whether it's pest diseases weeds challenges and you're
• 3:40
  looking for a novel solution that you can't get from anywhere else then please
• 3:42
  get in touch with me at eutrema.
• 3:44
  You'll find all the details at the eutrema website.
• 3:47
  If you're struggling to spell eutrema, it's Latin for wasabi.
• 3:51
  There you go, one of my favourite plants. That's why I named the company after it.
• 3:54
  Okay, until the next time, thank you very much for listening. Goodbye.