Information and communication technologies are part of almost any branch of human lives. During the last decade also beekeeping joined the direction of application of IT tools and solutions and precision beekeeping was defined. Still in the beekeeping many operations and observations are completed manually, and there is a potential to switch to the digital realisation. Information technologies can be used in the beekeeping to partly support the beekeepers by implementation of automatic or semi-automatic solutions for bee colony remote monitoring, apiary record making and other actions. The aim of this paper is to make a summary of the usage of information technology tools by the beekeepers in Latvia, summarizing precision beekeeping development status and conclude about its future development potential. To achieve this aim, in cooperation with Latvian Beekeepers Association, a beekeepers survey was conducted. More than 200 beekeepers shared thoughts and opinions about their application of information and communication technologies for monitoring the bee colonies and apiary management. The summary of the survey conducted is described in this study.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on national economies are characterized as the worst economic turmoil in recent years, as economic growth slowed to the level of the 2008 global financial crisis. At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, economic growth surveys did not project that the novel virus could have a negative impact on economic growth. As a result of the rapid spread of the virus and the increase in the number of infection cases, national governments took strict measures to limit the spread of the virus, which led to a significant deterioration in the economic situation in all industries of the economy. Agriculture plays an important role in providing food to the country’s population, yet the pandemic made a negative impact on sales volumes and prices in the domestic and international markets. The research aims to assess the impacts of the pandemic on milk supply chains in Latvia and come up with solutions to stabilizing the situation in the dairy sector. The national restrictions to combat the pandemic also hampered the dairy sector concerning the sale of raw milk and finished products in foreign markets, thereby leading to overproduction and stockpiling of the finished products, price dumping and a significant decrease in milk purchase prices to or below the production cost level for many dairy farms. Although there is no indication that the pandemic would lead to a decrease in the numbers of livestock and farms or output in early 2021, it is too early to assess the overall impact of the pandemic on dairy farming, as uncertainty over the duration of pandemic restrictions is a major risk to farm survival. The operation of the dairy sector was stabilized by means of the support provided by the government, as well as the farms’ accumulated financial and feed resources. In order to identify future challenges for milk supply chains, the research performed an analysis of operational risks for milk producers and processors to identify the most important risks and design recommendations for their elimination. The longer there is uncertainty about the return of the dairy sector to pre-pandemic output levels, the more likely it is that the pandemic is going to lead to a decrease in the numbers of dairy livestock and farms.

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 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.

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.

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.

1991-2017 the Southeast coast of the Baltic Sea area, Lithuania, Latvia and Kaliningrad Region of the Russian coastal habitats was very intense, often chaotic variety of recreational facilities and areas of privatization and urbanization. These processes significantly influenced the character of the recreational landscape of Palanga, Jurmala and other resorts and coastal areas, as well as the expression of the urban structure and architecture of seaside towns, Ventspils, Liepaja, Giruliai, Melnragė, Karklė, Šventoji, Curonian Spit and other settlements. After a quarter of a century, some tendencies of the recreational environment and the evolution of the cultural landscape identity can be noticed. Recently, several projects for the improvement of recreational infrastructure and architectural environments have been implemented in Lithuania with the assistance of the European Union Structural Funds. Unfortunately, the results of the projects are not always positive. The planning of coastal settlements is often overlooked by good long-term planning experience. This article analyses the impact of changes in the quality of the Lithuanian recreational territorial system in the South-Eastern Baltic and the region’s recreational potential. Palanga resort areas dominated by architectural chaos and recreational quality of the environment tended to deteriorate, especially experts poorly assessed the central Basanavičiaus street. The changes in cultural landscapes are influenced by a whole range of methodological and practical factors: insufficiently effective research and modeling methods, unjustified privatization of state property, huge flows of individual automobiles, faults in the formation of recreational greenery. Based on the research of the recreational system of the coastal region of the long-term seaside, it can be concluded that in recent years the quality of the environment of many coastal zones of Lithuania has lost important qualitative components, deteriorated the quality of public spaces and increased urban and architectural chaos.

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 aim of the research was to find out an appropriate method of treatment of retention of fetal membranes (RFM) in cows for conditions of Latvia. Three protocols for the treatment of retained fetal membranes in dairy cows were evaluated in a field trial. Cows that retained the fetal membranes for more than 24 hours were assigned to three treatment groups. Group 1 – control group; group 2 – cows with RFM, which were removed manually, and cows were intrauterine treated with antibiotics; group 3 – cows with RFM, which were not removed, and cows were intrauterine treated with antibiotics, and group 4 – cows with RFM, which were not removed, and cows were not treated. In animals with a decreased feed consumption or milk production, body temperature above 39.5 °C, systemic therapy was applied with ceftiofur hydrochloride or procaine benzilpenicillin. In order to establish subclinical endometritis, all cows were histologically examined on the 42ⁿᵈ day postpartum (PP). Subclinical mastitis was diagnosed both in cows with RFM and control group cows. Results indicated that better reproductive results were in cows of group 2 and group 4. Actually, results indicated that treatment of RFM without intrauterine manipulation and parenteral treatment could be as effective as conventional treatment including RFM detachment and local antibiotic treatment.