Scholarly record

SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF GRASSLAND UTILIZATION POTENTIAL IN LATVIA

Aleksejs Nipers

Abstract

In Latvia, land is the key natural resource, and the use of it for production purposes is of great importance. The utilised agricultural area in Latvia totalled 1.93 mln.ha, of which 47% or 905 thou.ha was grassland. Meadows and pastures had a 70% proportion, while permanent grasses had a 30% proportion in the cropping pattern for grassland. Therefore, the overall aim of the present research is to identify the grassland area and the geographic locations of and the cropping pattern for grasslands in Latvia. To achieve the aim, the following specific research tasks are defined: 1) to analyse the grassland area and the geographic locations of grasslands in Latvia; 2) to identify the demand for and supply of green biomass in Latvia. The research found that arable land was cropped with grasses mostly in soils having a higher qualitative estimate than the soils of meadows and pastures had. However, 75% of the total meadow and pasture area was located in territories with soils having a qualitative estimate in the range of 25-44 points, and almost 10% of the area had soils qualitatively estimated at 25 points. The research estimated the demand for and supply of green biomass. Overall, the supply of green biomass considerably exceeded the demand for it in Latvia, yet in some territories of the country where the largest dairy farms were located the supply was insufficient on a local scale.

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