Globally, food systems are the most significant cause of environmental change; therefore, efforts to create more environmentally sustainable food systems are presented. One of the directions is strengthening the local actors and short food supply chains. Simultaneously, changes in farming systems are needed, and organic agriculture is one of the ways to make food systems more environmentally sustainable. Despite the abundance of research on the environmental consciousness of consumers in short food supply chains, the question is raised whether local food chain farmers are also committed to environmental sustainability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the importance of environmental sustainability to organic short food supply chain actors. More specifically, the research depicts the views of organic farmers and consumers and their relation to the actual environmental sustainability of short food supply chains. During the research, a specific short food supply chain – a direct purchasing network – was explored. A qualitative approach was applied to reach the aim. Thus, in-depth interviews and observations were used as a research method. The research results demonstrated the views of farmers and consumers of the specific network regarding environmental sustainability aspects in the network. In the research, such environmental aspects as the circularity of resources, biodiversity, chemicals in the environment, seasonality and locality of diets, and the distance (food miles) were admitted as crucial ones by the specific short food supply chain actors. The differences in opinions of consumers and farmers emerged when thinking about the scale of their views.

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 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 research paper presents the results of research on the situation and trends in the age structure of farm owners or managers in Latvia. The growing world population and the challenges caused by climate change make farmers reconsider their traditional farming practices. Therefore, scientists believe that the aging of farmers is a major obstacle to the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas, as evidenced by the age structure of European Union (EU) farmers and other agricultural workers. Generation renewal is crucial for sustainable land management and food production. In 2018, according to statistical data, the share of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in total gross value added in Latvia was only 3.8%. However, these sectors were the main job creators and drivers of economic development in rural areas. Therefore, the aim of the present research is to assess trends in the age structure of farm managers and owners and the policy instruments applied in Latvia. The results of the research show that despite the policy instruments implemented in Latvia after its accession to the EU to support young farmers and promote early retirement of farm owners, the aging process of farm owners and managers occurs relatively fast. The median age of farm owners and managers in Latvia has increased from 53 years in 2009 to 57 years in 2019, which could hinder the development of the agricultural industry and prevent the new challenge of growing global food demand and the negative impacts of climate change from being tackled.

An urgent problem is drying and processing of the wet dispersed waste, obtained in the production of food products, which can then be efficiently used as a fertiliser, for feeding livestock or as biofuel. A new design of a vibrating fluidised bed dryer has been developed, which, with low energy consumption, provides a pre-set productivity and the required final moisture content. The process of vertical oscillations of the body of a vibration dryer, together with the food waste contained in it, is analysed analytically, the necessary equivalent scheme is built, on the basis of which differential equations of the vertical oscillations of the body are compiled, their analytical solutions are obtained, and a numerical calculation is performed on a PC using the developed program.

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.

Social enterprises have positive effect on sustainable development, and they have become an important instrument for solving social problems (especially in rural areas), as the national and local governments alone cannot solve all such problems. To foster the development of social entrepreneurship, Latvia has introduced several support instruments for social enterprises, which include tax relief, privileged procurement contracts, grants, as well as non-monetary kinds of support. However, social entrepreneurs often point out that support from the national and local governments is insufficient, while the support instruments stipulated in the Social Enterprise Law are not widely used. Therefore, the aim of the research is to analyse national and local government support instruments for social enterprises in Latvia. The research found that the most important financial instrument fostering the development of social entrepreneurship in Latvia is a grant scheme administered by the Ministry of Welfare and the JSC Development Finance Institution Altum, which is available in the range of EUR 5000 to 200 000 for investment and working capital. In the period 2017‒2020, 94 social entrepreneurship projects with a total budget of EUR 6 million were supported, which could be viewed as significant financial support. In contrast, immovable property tax relief, exemption from enterprise income tax (on profits) and relief from this tax for several categories of non-business expenses are considered by social entrepreneurs to be an insignificant kind of support. There is also lack of experience and practice regarding the inclusion of social criteria in public procurement in Latvia.

There is a strong correlation between diet and mental health, and malnutrition can contribute to the development of various psycho-neurological diseases. Fatty acid profile plays an important role in the treatment of psycho-neurological diseases; therefore, the aim of the current study was to evaluate fatty acid profile in the diet of patients in three Latvian psycho-neurological hospitals. Latvian psycho-neurological hospitals submitted a detailed one-week menu. The information in the menus was processed using the Fineli program. Each menu identified the composition of fatty acids. The average fat concentration in different hospital menus ranged from 74.8 g to 96.1 g per day, where the concentration of saturated fatty acids ranged from 37.5 g to 47.7 g per day and the unsaturated fat concentration ranged from 35.9 g to 47 g per day. The n-3 PUFA content was consistent with the recommendations of a healthy individual, but it did not meet the needs of patients in a psycho-neurological hospital. The total eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid concentration in the hospital menus ranged from 0.03 to 0.13 g, which was significantly lower than recommended, whereas LA and ALA concentration in hospital menus is close to optimal. The trans-fatty acids concentration in hospital menus did not exceed 2.5 g per day, with the exception of one day in hospital No. 2. The impact of diet on the treatment of psycho-neurological diseases in Latvian psycho-neurological hospitals has not been sufficiently assessed.

It is well known that wood tends to shrink and swell as the relative humidity of the air changes. There have been, and still are, attempts to make dimensionally stable wood panels such as Dendrolight®. The physical-mechanical, operational, including acoustic, properties of this material have been significantly improved compared to traditional wood-based panels. However, the production of this material requires very specific processing equipment and a large energy investment. The developers of this material in Latvia invented and patented wood, Lightweight Stabilised Blockboard (LSB). In order for this material to be used in the production of various products, it is necessary to clarify its characteristic, technological, as well as operational properties. The study gathers information about the sound absorption properties of various natural and wood materials, characteristics, and the sound absorption of the studied material at different sound frequencies. The reviewed sources of information indicate that nowadays there are still problems in sound conduction and absorption and isolation issues are being addressed in building acoustics. The production of samples and the determination of sound absorption were carried out using a developed methodology developed in accordance with regulatory requirements. The data obtained in the practical study were compared with the relevant indicators of the Dendrolight® and wood-based panels used for building structures and to determine their compliance with the requirements set forth in the standards ISO 10534-2 and ISO 11654. Research data show that LSB corresponds to E sound absorption class in some of the investigated frequencies.

Poultry production decision setting is full of risk and imperfect information. Attitude towards risk is a measure of farmers’ willingness to take risks which is an important determinant in their production decisions. Strong social capital emanating from social networks can lead to efficient risk management strategies, thereby minimizing risks faced by the farmers. Therefore, the effects of social capital on the risk attitude of small-scale commercial poultry farmers in Oyo state were assessed. Data were collected from two hundred small-scale farmers and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, factorial analysis, multinomial logit and a two-stage least square. Results showed that 52.5%, 37.5% and 10% of the poultry farmers were risk averse, risk neutral and risk preferring, respectively. About 31.4% and 68.6% of the female and male farmers respectively were risk averse. Close to a fifth, a quarter and two-thirds of the risk averse, risk neutral and risk takers respectively contributed 21-30% of the decisions in the associations. Fourteen percent of the farmers belonged to homogeneous groups. The choice of being risk averse was affected by marital status, educational level, family size, percentage spent on poultry income and aggregate social capital. There was no reverse causality between risk attitude and social capital.