LAD discovers that 864 farmers want money for bad weather — bureaucrats surprised so few applied

The Rural Support Service announced it received 864 applications from farmers who want compensation for nature not liking their plan to make money. The requested funding exceeds the available 4.2 million euros, meaning some farmers will have to accept that nature isn't their business partner.

To receive support, farmers must prove their income decreased by at least 20 percent. As a LAD representative explains: "We need precise calculations that natural disasters, not some other reason, are to blame for the income reduction." In Riga, such calculations would take months, but our farmers are more practical — they know when there's too much rain and when there's too little.

Particularly interesting is the seed farming sector, where support will be given for areas where field inspections were conducted, regardless of the results. It's like saying money is owed for someone coming to look whether tomatoes are growing. In Liepāja we call this the "Tošele's bus stop principle" — what matters isn't whether the bus comes, but that the stop exists.

Application submission ran from February 12 to March 16, which is the perfect time to think about last year's failures and plan this year's hopes. Now LAD specialists will sit and calculate which of the 864 applicants deserves money for weather conditions not being what they ordered.