The economy of Latvia lags behind economically developed nations approximately fourfold in terms of labour productivity in the tradable sector, which is the key constituent of a modern economy, thereby affecting future sustainable development in the entire country, including the rural areas. The economic backwardness is characteristic of the entire Central and Eastern Europe. This is the heritage of a communist regime that lasted for about half a century and the economic system termed a (centrally) planned economy or a command economy. However, such a term for the communist-period economy is not correct, as it does not represent the purpose it was created for. Accordingly, the paper aims to assess the effect of the communism period on the economic backwardness of the Central and Eastern European region of the EU. A planned economy that existed in all communist countries, with the exception of Yugoslavia, was not introduced to contribute to prosperity. It was intended for confrontation or even warfare by the communist countries under the guidance of the USSR against other countries where no communism regime existed, mostly Western world nations with their market economies. For this reason, it is not correct to term it a (centrally) planned economy or a command economy; the right term is a mobilised (war) economy. An extrapolation of a geometric progression for GDP revealed that during the half a century, Latvia as part of the USSR was forced to spend on confrontation with the West not less than EUR 17 bln. (2011 prices) or approximately one gross domestic product of 2011. The research aim of the paper is to assess the effect of the communism period on the economic backwardness of the Central and Eastern European region of the EU.

The employment of people with disabilities has multidimensional aspects - economic, social, legal, human rights, discrimination, psychological, ethical and responsibility aspects - with different actors involved representing various kinds of interests. The European Union Disability Action Plan and Strategy specifies the objective of promoting the employment of people with disabilities in the open labour market. The employment of such individuals is not only an economic issue, but also an issue of social inclusion, poverty reduction, equal opportunity and socially responsible employment. Effective and fair use of human resources for national economic development requires a variety of support mechanisms, including regulatory frameworks, the active involvement of local municipalities, and measures taken by state institutions. Because of the different issues and the various actors with different interests involved, an integrated way has to be considered to analyse the employment factors and employment opportunities for people with disabilities. The purpose of this study is to explore and substantiate the possible scenarios associated with promotion employment opportunities for people with disabilities in Latvia. The research methodology employed for this study is based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, and expert interviews are used to analyse the interests of all involved parties, in order to determine the best possible scenarios as to how to stimulate employment for people with disabilities. As a result, three scenarios to promote the employment of people with disabilities were developed. Although the results showed slight differences between the three scenarios, experts believe that the optimal scenario for promoting the employment of people with disabilities is the one in which the EU participates.

The national ecolabel of tourist accommodation establishments and rural tourism enterprises of Latvia – the ‘Green Certificate’ (hereinafter the ‘Green Certificate’) celebrated its 20ᵗʰ anniversary in 2019. Its creation in 1999 was initiated by the Latvian Rural Tourism Association ‘Baltic Country Holidays’, and it is currently one of the oldest European ecolabels still in operation. One of the most significant tourism and rural tourism resources in Latvia is the natural and cultural heritage, which is the basis for the development of rural tourism products. In this process, ecosystem services used in tourism products play a major role. One of the goals of the ‘Green Certificate’ is environment, nature and local society friendly and sustainable farming, which means both a careful use of natural resources and their inclusion in the tourism product development process. The aim of this study was to find out which ecosystem services were used and the ways they were used by rural tourism companies to create the nature protection, social and economic added value. According to the respondents, 1/3 of the revenue of the ‘Green Certificate’ companies is generated by the use of the ecosystem services. It is an argument for further research on the possibilities of the ecosystem services to be used more effectively in future in developing new rural tourism products.

Wood-based ash landfilling is increasing issue not only in Latvia but in the whole world as more biomass is used for energy production. Utilization of wood burning waste as fertilizer is already used worldwide, but there is lack of information about chemical composition of wood ash obtained from Latvia plants, so the aim of this study was to determine chemical composition and analyse possible utilization options of wood-based ash from Latvia plants. Therefore wood ash samples from 53 companies were collected, sieved and chemical composition of samples was determined. It was concluded that within higher capacity of furnace more coarse fraction of wood ash was observed which is less valuable as fertilizer. Wood ash is good liming material consisting alkali compounds and other biogenic elements but also heavy metals, which are pollutants and could cause environmental problems.

In the market of the Latvia different wood surface coating materials suitable for use in outdoor conditions are offered, but available information on the efficiency of these against direct water exposure is insufficient. For structural timber building elements, such as glued laminated timber (GLT), the surface coating should be applied taking into account technological, visual or colour changes (ISO 7724:1984) and – last, but not least – economic aspects are considered. Wood surfaces coated with coating materials, such as varnishes, paints, etc. can stabilize some properties such as movement of moisture content, dimensional changes and attack by microorganisms and fungi. The changes in the moisture content of timber may influence such important parameters as mechanical properties and the total life time of the structural timber elements. A study has been conducted with the aim of assessing the efficiency of coating materials used for wood protection against water absorption. In this study, six different commercial coating products used for the treatment of spruce (Picea Abies L. Karst.) and pine (Pinus Sylvestris L.) samples were tested. The efficiency of different coating substances was assessed using two modified test methods according to the standards EN 382-2 (1994) and EN 927-5 (2006), determining the surface water absorption after immersion in water for 24 h and the dynamics of water absorption of the glued laminated timber for 696 h kept in water. As a result of the study, it has been ascertained that organic solvent-based commercial coating products are more efficient against short-term and long-term wood water absorption compared to oil-based coating materials.

Potato proteins contains essential amino acids in considerably high concentration, therefore potatoes are considered to be one of the most valuable plant origin food for human consumption. Patatin forms one of the largest group of potato proteins with high potential to be used in food industry as a novel food. This study has been performed to approbate patatin determination method for evaluation of protein quality of potato genotypes, as well as evaluate patatin relative abundance (PRA) for breeding programmes to create in the future potato cultivars with higher value and potential to develop new products. The evaluation of patatin was performed in following steps– extraction proteins from potato, determination of patatin concentration and calculation of its relative abundance in proteins. Separation of patatin from potato tubers was made using extraction by SDS extraction buffer and determination of patatin in organically and conventionally (with differnt N suply) grown samples of 20 potato genotypes. The results of one-year study showed that patatin relative abundance of different cultivars varied from 1.65% to 50.2% and it was significantly different among genotypes. The nitrogen content of soil and maturity type of potato did not affect PRA significantly. Results provide impetus for further research.

To survive in today's competitive environment, companies must continuously develop and offer customers new products. To increase the probability of a successful business case of investing in the development of a new product, careful attention must be paid to risk analysis in terms of the present value of future potential income. The article considers an example of the research work of the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, in the framework of which a technical and technological project was developed to produce a new product, like Mediterranean anchovy, from cheaper Baltic sprats. The main goal of this work is to explore the application multi-factor sensitivity and fuzzy real option analysis to the valuation of new product development project. The multivariate analysis of the sensitivity of the financial model of the greenfield production project described in this article revealed the main risk groups, as well as their degree of influence on the assessment of the Net Present Value of the project by a potential investor. The use of Fuzzy Real Option Valuation made it possible to evaluate the project with uncertain parameters, as well as to calculate the potential upside from preliminary refinement of parameters to eliminate negative scenarios. The described approach is applicable to risk assessment of new food product development and allows investors to make a more informed decision about participation in such projects.

The development of organic farming is determined by many factors. On the one hand, it is an increase in demand for food produced in this production system, on the other it is a subsidy system for organic farming under the CAP. The purpose of the article is a comparative analysis of the direction of changes in the development of organic farming in Poland and Latvia compared to the EU in the years 2000-2017. Information was analysed on the organic farming i.e. the area of organic crops, the number of certified farms and organic retail sales, based on FIBL data from the years 2000–2017. An analysis of the trend of changes in organic farming in Poland and Latvia indicates that the development of organic farming in both countries has clearly accelerated after their accession to the EU and after covering organic farming by the CAP support system. However, the case of Poland is definitely different from the trend of changes in organic farming in Latvia and in the EU, where both the number of organic farms and their area increased, with the simultaneous development of the organic food market. There are many indications that mistakes were made in the organic farming subsidy system.

In order to assess the nature of climate change, it is important to analyze the indicators of climate variability in different scales: spatial and temporal. The analysis at different scales can lead to understanding of the nature of variations. Climate change studies are essential for comprehending the nature of global processes, to refine global climate patterns and also develop further research for natural processes (Meinke, Stone, 2005; Hulme et al., 1999). Processes in nature are united, continuous and in constant interaction. Variance of interaction types are immeasurable, types can be connected with different scales and science fields, for example, biological, ecological, physical etc. If interaction is taking place between the land and atmosphere, it is defined as hydrological interaction. As water is significantly important for many purposes on the Earth, it is relevant to analyze precipitation and water runoff on a local scale. In the territory of Latvia, the amount of precipitation exceeds the level of evapotranspiration. Long-term monitoring data show that precipitation leads to average runoff of 250 mm per year (Ziverts, 2004). The monitoring data collected at three research sites located in Latvia was used for this research including Berze (Lielupe river basin, meteorological station in Dobele), Mellupite (Venta river basin, meteorological station in Saldus monitoring) and Vienziemite (Gauja river basin, meteorological station in Zoseni). The results from this study show that there is a pronounced interaction between runoff and precipitation with an average of 53 to 82%.

The constructivist approach is based on the idea that knowledge can never be passed from one person to another. The only way to acquire knowledge is to create or construct them. The constructivist approach changes also the role of the teacher in the educational process, the task of them is to organize the environment so that the student himself can construct the cognitive forms that teacher wants to give him. In the paper, the nature of the constructivist approach is identified, different aspects regarding mathematics education are analysed as well as the potential impact on the development of mathematical competences in the context of sustainable development is discussed. The study process and learning methods appropriate to constructivist approach also were studied. In order to illustrate the need for a constructivist approach in mathematics education, the survey of students from Latvia University of Life Science and Technologies (LLU) and Riga Technical University (RTU) were carried out, the results of which proved that mathematics learning at universities has to be changed. The current study proved that the constructivist approach radically changes the process of teaching and learning mathematics, connecting it with daily life, rather than teaching only abstract formulas and using a creative approach to mathematical tasks solving. This study shows that using constructivist approach to the teaching of mathematics, the competences needed for sustainable development are boosted.