He is sitting and talking, but suddenly jumps to his feet when he sees that a load of freshly picked blueberries has arrived. He goes to help unload it, making things easier for the women. Then he returns to the interview as if nothing had happened. This is one of the main impressions that comes from speaking to Viktors Strāders, the head of farm “Dižoga”.
He is a manager who is personally involved in every process, who seems to move faster than the wind and who undoubtedly has more energy than the average person. Perhaps that is why everything here is so impressive – the blueberry plantations cover a vast area, everything has been modernised, and at the same time the farm is organic. I went to meet this energetic farmer and discover more about him and his farm.
Birds are singing, the sun is shining
Farm “Dižoga” was established in 2002. Interestingly, the idea was actually inspired by a neighbour, Paulis, who also grew blueberries. At the time – and still today – Viktors was primarily involved in the coal trade, but it was clear that this business would not last forever, so he had to think about what to do next and how to build what he himself calls his “retirement capital”.
“I thought it was the perfect business – birds are singing all around, the sun is shining, people are picking berries. As is always the case at the beginning, we didn’t think about the difficulties at all. The neighbour’s berries looked so big and sweet.
So, in 2002, I ordered my first plants, and everything gradually started here in this peat bog in Kocēni Municipality, because I had heard that blueberries grow best in peat,” Viktors says, recalling that the first planting covered six hectares with 15,000 plants.
Problems began as early as the second year. The blueberries were not growing particularly well, and of the original six hectares, only two remained. But once the first loans had been taken out, giving up was no longer an option. They learned how to propagate their own plants and gradually established 13 hectares of blueberry plantations.
The land where “Dižoga’s” blueberries grow does not belong to the farm – it is leased from the state-owned company Latvijas valsts meži. And Viktors’ story has not been without complications in this respect either.
The original lease term created a rather unusual situation: once the lease expired, the farm would theoretically have had to remove everything it had established over the years, participate in a new tender and, if successful, start all over again.
“Jānis, Pēteris or anyone else could come along, offer more, and win. We would have to remove everything within eight months, and then he could say – you know what, I’m not going to plant anything after all. But there are plantations here worth around one million euros,” says Viktors. He also appreciates the involvement of the Ministry of Agriculture in discussions with Latvijas valsts meži, which ultimately helped achieve a reasonable solution – the lease term has now been extended to 70 years.
“Now that’s enough for the rest of my life and for my children too,” Viktors laughs, adding that properly maintained blueberry bushes can produce for 80 years or more.
From conventional farming to organic production
At first, “Dižoga” was not an organic farm. The turning point came around ten years ago, when Viktors met a Polish grower. After seeing how he worked and learning a great deal from him, Viktors decided to convert his own farm to organic production as well.
“It was more difficult at first because there were far fewer organic products and solutions available. Now there are all kinds of preparations, but organic farming is more expensive and requires much more knowledge. Otherwise, you can get yourself into trouble very quickly.”
Listening to Viktors, it soon becomes clear that “organic” here certainly does not mean simply doing nothing and letting everything grow on its own. Quite the opposite. You need to understand nature much better, be able to anticipate problems and find solutions in which chemical plant protection products are replaced by other mechanisms.
“Conventional growers have many different substances to deal with rot, diseases and insects. You buy them and spray. With organic farming, you have to think preventively,” says Viktors.
That is why a whole invisible army is at work in “Dižoga’s” fields. The farm has created special habitats for predatory insects, which collect unwanted larvae from the blueberry bushes and carry them back to their nests. To combat rot, the farm uses bacteria that they have learned to cultivate themselves.
An unusual solution is also used for pollination – wild bees brought from Poland. They do not produce honey, but, as Viktors puts it, they “do their job” by pollinating the plants. The shape of a blueberry flower is apparently not particularly well suited to honey bees, whereas these bees are better adapted to accessing the flower. An alternative would be to purchase bumblebee colonies every season, but on large areas this would involve considerable costs.
A chef by profession
The more Viktors talks about bacteria, pollination, soil analysis, fertilisers and varietal characteristics, the more obvious the question becomes – where did he learn all this?
“No, I haven’t studied agronomy. I’m a chef by profession.”
Most of his knowledge has come through practical experience. Contacts with Polish growers have been particularly important, as have the training courses and study visits organised by the Latvian Rural Advisory and Training Centre (LLKC). Some of these study visits were financed by European Union funding, and Viktors believes their value went far beyond the lectures themselves. Sometimes, the most important thing was the person he met.
During one trip to Sweden, he met a Lithuanian who he still keeps in touch with today. Through him, he established new contacts in Poland, including with producers of organic preparations who later also visited “Dižoga”, assessed the plantations and helped design experiments.
“The Poles are ahead of us. If we used to say they were ten years ahead, now I say that we simply can’t catch up with them. They keep moving forward all the time in terms of development.”
Viktors calls one of the Polish growers his mentor. When the blueberries were not growing well, he helped him understand what needed to be done differently. However, Viktors even had to promise his mentor that some of the knowledge would not be passed on to anyone else while he was alive.
“It’s not that simple. Knowledge is hard to come by, and I’m very grateful to him. He has taught me a great deal.”
At the same time, Viktors points out that he could not do all this alone. His family is actively involved in the work, and he is also sincerely grateful to all the berry pickers who come here and help get the work done.
Support without which it would be difficult to build a farm like this
When talking about the development of “Dižoga”, there is another topic Viktors returns to repeatedly – state and European Union support.
“We have developed very, very much thanks to it,” he says.
Support has been used at various stages of the farm’s development. Viktors recalls that in the past, support of 2,000 lats per hectare was available for establishing plantations. Later, as support programmes changed, it became possible to purchase larger and more expensive plants, which had a greater chance of establishing successfully.
But the plants themselves are not enough. A drip irrigation system was installed on the farm with the help of a Rural Support Service project. Viktors returns to its importance when talking about the devastating year of 2023. In his view, if such a system had already been in place, some of the losses could have been avoided.
Support was also used to purchase a refrigerated van for transporting berries. The farm is now preparing to plant approximately three more hectares. Viktors says that projects aimed at using peat bog areas for agricultural purposes have been eligible for co-financing of up to 70%, while in other cases the support intensity has been 50%.
This means that an investment which a farm might otherwise postpone for years if financed entirely from its own resources becomes realistically achievable with support.
Viktors makes a similar point about risk-reduction technologies. For example, an anti-hail cannon costs around EUR 56,000. This is a very large sum, but EU co-financing available for irrigation and various protection solutions can cover a significant share of the total costs.
“If you have even 50% co-financing, you can get it for half the price,” Viktors explains. This is important because in blueberry growing, a single episode of adverse weather can destroy an entire year’s work. Therefore, money is invested not only in increasing production but also in protecting the farm against frost, drought and hail.
The importance of state and EU support became particularly clear in 2023. It was a disastrous year for “Dižoga”, with several adverse factors occurring at once. There was insufficient rainfall in spring, the organic fertiliser did not start working as expected, the plants later failed to prepare for winter in time, and on top of all this came a severe frost.
Viktors estimates that around 70% of the plantations were affected. Virtually no harvest was collected that year. But the costs do not disappear simply because there is no harvest. There are employees, loans, machinery, a cold storage facility and a farm that still has to be maintained even when there is no income from the berries. It was precisely at this point that emergency support helped.
“I think it saved a large number of farmers,” he says.
“If you have a vision, write the project application”
It is often said that preparing project applications is time-consuming and not always easy. Viktors, however, does not complain about it.
“I don’t think it’s difficult. LLKC helps, and they have good people who can write project applications. If you have a clear vision, if you have thought it through and know that it will work, then write the application and everything will happen.”
Of course, projects have eligibility criteria and funding is not guaranteed – applicants need to achieve a sufficient score to be above the threshold. However, organic farms can receive additional points for their organic status under certain programmes, thereby increasing their chances of receiving support.
Viktors’ attitude is very practical. If the state and the European Union offer instruments that can make a farm more modern and resilient, they should be used.
The farming year does not end with the last berry
The harvest season at “Dižoga” usually begins at the end of July and lasts until the end of September. In some years, late varieties are still being picked in early October. One might think that after that, winter finally brings some peace. Viktors laughs. As soon as berry picking ends and the leaves fall, pruning and shaping the bushes begins. This continues practically throughout the winter, until May. Then fertilisation, grass management, work with pollinators and preparations for the new season begin.
During the harvest season, the farm’s team becomes much larger. A seasonal agricultural worker employment scheme is used, allowing workers to be registered flexibly according to when they actually arrive to pick berries.
The farm does not actively advertise self-picking. Some people have been coming for years and call in advance, but Viktors does not want to invite everyone on a large scale – the farm would then have to guarantee that there would be enough berries. It is not good if someone drives from Riga or even farther away only to find that there is nothing left to pick by the evening.
Sales opportunities
Most of “Dižoga’s” harvest currently goes to Rimi. The cooperation began several years ago. Initially, the farm sold its produce through a distribution centre that also supplied berries to Rimi. The retail chain noticed “Dižoga’s” produce and invited the farm to cooperate directly. The two parties now have a contract covering the Baltic region – if there were more berries, they could also be sold in Lithuania and Estonia.
Viktors is particularly proud of the quality of the berries and their ability to remain fresh for a long time.
“They say – we don’t understand how you do it. Organic berries usually spoil faster, but yours just keep sitting there and sitting there, and in the end we simply eat them.”
The farm uses a biological technology originally developed in Japan for this purpose, involving bacteria. Viktors does not reveal the details, however – it is a trade secret.
He also speaks surprisingly positively about cooperation with the supermarket chain. If a particularly large volume of berries suddenly comes in at the peak of the harvest, the farm can agree on a promotion with Rimi and increase sales.
“I lower the price a little, but Rimi lowers it much more. You can negotiate everything. They are very accommodating.”
Not more hectares, but more from each hectare
Should the farm continue growing? Here, Viktors, who seems ready to constantly improve and build something new, slows down a little.
His Polish mentor keeps expanding, even though he is around 20 years older than Viktors. However, the owner of “Dižoga” says that at some point you also have to live – you cannot work all the time. The plan now is to stabilise the farm at around 15 hectares. Another three hectares are to be planted, but he does not want to keep searching for new peat bogs and expand the farm indefinitely.
There are farms in Latvia with blueberry plantations covering 40, 50 or even 60 hectares, so “Dižoga” is not the largest in terms of area. Among organic blueberry growers, however, it could be one of the largest. But Viktors himself is not particularly interested in breaking size records.
“Size is not important. What matters is quality and how much you can harvest from one hectare. There’s no point having huge areas if the yield is low. You still have costs per hectare. It’s better to have less land but keep it better maintained.”
“You can complain, but it won’t help”
When I ask how easy or difficult it is to be a farmer in Latvia, I am already expecting the usual list of problems. But here too, Viktors remains true to himself.
He says it all depends on what you compare yourself with. If you compare yourself only with wealthier countries and people who you think are better off, there will always be reasons to be dissatisfied.
“If you think you’re living badly, look at how people live elsewhere in the world. If you have enough to eat and a roof over your head – that’s already good. The fact that something went wrong in one particular year… You’re alive, you’re healthy – everything is fine. You can complain, but it won’t help.”
This is not only about peace of mind and good fortune. In agriculture, a large share of annual income is generated during a short harvest period, while expenses continue throughout the year. That is why Viktors emphasises the importance of financial discipline.
“You can’t say – oh, I got some money, now I’ll go on a trip. The money has to be invested.”
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