In Latvia, as everywhere, intensive agriculture has transformed natural meadows and grasslands including pastures with low intensity grazing, to drained arable land with monoculture agriculture, resulting in habitat loss and species extinction. Alongside, the lack of grazing, together with rural depopulation and land abandonment, has left agricultural land and pastures of less economic value being overgrown with trees, also defining the Latvian landscape.
Bekas is a family farm, demonstration site and learning centre for grassland restoration in northern Latvia. The farm is partly located in the Ziemeļgauja nature reserve, one of the country’s most species rich Natura 2000 areas. The landscape here is shaped by the Gauja River which floods annually and erodes the sandbanks, meandering through grasslands with pine forests.
On the farm’s 120 hectares, there are 11 types of woodland meadows, pastures and dry grasslands on calcareous soils; forests and aquatic biotopes, in process of, or to be restored based on the EU habitats directive and Latvian regulations.
The farm’s owners, Ines Gmizo-Lārmane and Viesturs Lārmanis have worked with nature conservation for over twenty years. In 2016, they moved out to the family farm.
With the grazing of about 60 Scottish highland cattle, removal of trees and bushes, milling of stumps, sowing of seminatural meadow plants, and mowing of varied intensity, they have successfully restored overgrown oak meadows, improving the vegetation and species composition from forest vegetation to biologically highly valuable grassland vegetation, according to data gathered, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Latvia (GrassLIFE).
The Bekas farm now hosts more than 50 protected and endangered species of plants, animals and fungi, such as the beetle Osmoderma barnabita, the most symbolic of the endangered species that characterize wooded meadows, and the Orchis mascula orchid.
According to Viesturs, the meadows here, created in the days of pre-industrial agriculture, are an important example of how agriculture can have a positive effect on biodiversity, and refers to the grazing and mowing now used to manage these meadows as “biodiversity farming”. “Our Scottish highland cattle eat more than at least 200 different species of plants in their daily diet, so the meat that we produce is very unique in terms of its origin”.
In Latvia the beaver population is considered to be too big (explaining why we were treated with beaver meat at the end of the week) and to cause significant problems, such as flooding and damage to trees. At Bekas they are seen as a threat to the rare oak habitats and to migrating fish. But, as beavers are famous key species playing a crucial role to their ecosystems, we assume that this solution is also due to the beavers negatively influencing the water dynamics, hindering access to valuable land.
Historically, inundation, waterlogging, uneven terrain and extremely dry areas made this site unsuitable for industrial agriculture.
And still today, sandy soils and regular inundation and droughts contribute to the fact that there isn’t enough land to feed the 60 Scottish highland cattle. (The ancestors living from the land kept a lower number of animals).
To complement, the cattle get hay with a rich meadow flora from other farms, making the ruminants become natural seed spreaders.
Meat,
honey, strawberries, wild berry jam, nature tourism for families and
seminars: the family farm is exploring ways to finance its continued
activities.
To protect the many endangered beetles and fungi that live on dead and pollarded trees, it is crucial to leave dead wood of various types; a large part thrives best in remnants from deciduous trees, and with a greater mix of different tree species, a greater number of red-listed species are found, according to a report from SLU.