Viesturs Lārmanis and Inese Gmizo-Lārmane are the owners of the Nature farm BEKAS. Photo: K.Kalns
Viesturs Lārmanis and Inese Gmizo-Lārmane are the owners of the Nature farm BEKAS. The farm is located in the northern part of Latvia in Valka County in the Gauja river valley. The largest part of the farm’s territory lies within the nature reserve and nature park zones of protected landscape area Ziemeļgauja (it is also Natura 2000 site and an Important Bird area). It is a beef cattle farm, but the main essence of the farm is their work with biodiversity, which is also a significant topic for educational activities on the farm and for the products that are planned to be developed in the future.
But how did this journey start? Viesturs and Inese have 20 years of experience working in nature protection – mainly in mapping and planning protection of species and habitats. They were also involved in the development of nature protection regulations in Latvia and the education of field experts. In 2017, they left their jobs in the nature conservation sector and started a new chapter in their lives, to fulfil the long-time dream of Viesturs to become a farmer on his family farm. In a short period, Viesturs and Inese have done an amazing job in restructuring the farm to balance farming with nature. We are proud to announce Viesturs as one of our ENPLC Ambassadors.
This is an old picture of my grandparents with guests and herd in the pastures of Gauja river bank, in the 1930s. Knowing that 120 years ago the great-grandfather worked on the exact same meadow that we care for today is a strong emotional motivation to continue what he started and helps to better understand and explain how certain natural values have survived to this day.
ENPLC: “Thank you Viesturs for being part of the ENPLC community. You have a clear objective, protect nature and make a living of your family-owned farm. How do you reach that goal?”
The Bekas Nature Farm is unique in terms of its biodiversity. We have EU protected habitats covering almost each square meter of the farm. Altogether we host 11 different types of meadow and water habitats on the farm, which are specially protected in accordance with the EU Habitats Directive. It is remarkable that this amount of habitats is reached already in the very first 30 ha, after which it repeats itself in the entire territory of the farm, which is about 120 ha. As far as we know, this is the highest density of different specially protected habitats on the territory of a single continuous farm in the entire EU. If you want to understand what the Habitats Directive means in the life of a farmer, visit us.
The Bekas farm is also hosting more than 50 protected and endangered species of plants, animals and fungi, but if we include birds or mammals for which the farm is part of a wider living space, then the number of specially protected species exceeds 70. This is definitely not little, if we are talking about an area of just over 1 square kilometre, and the fact that these specially protected species exist in an area where active farming is taking place. So, our farming has to be designed to take into account this superb nature diversity.
We host 11 different types of meadow and water habitats on the farm, which are specially protected in accordance with the EU Habitats Directive. Photo: V.Lārmanis
We were happy to boost our activities in becoming a demonstration farm via the LIFE funded GrassLIFE project and at the same time we restructured the farm towards being more sustainable environmentally, and, hopefully, economically as well. We restored or improved grassland habitats and set up a new grazing model that is better suited for our species-rich grasslands.
The GrassLIFE project is a LIFE programme funded project that aims to restore and improve EU priority grasslands and to promote their multiple use in Latvia. The project focuses on developing, optimizing and improving the conservation status of five EU priority grasslands in Latvia. More can be found on www.grasslife.lv.
To restore our grassland habitats, we used a mixture of well-known methods, such as: sowing of seminatural meadow plants, re-planting of a species rich turf, removal of trees and bushes, milling and removal of stumps, restorative grazing and mowing of varied intensity. To adapt the grazing regime to more nature-friendly approach, we replaced out former Charolais, Limousin, and Hereford crossbreed cattle herd with a more extensive breed – Scottish Highland Cattle. We hope that these cattle will help biodiversity better, as they are lighter in weight and have more natural grazing behaviour. Our first observations confirm that this is indeed the case. Another reason for changing the livestock breed was economic – intensive breeds cannot be grown profitably in conditions where there is sometimes more sand than grass. It will take us several years to find out whether these changes will improve the economy of our farm, but we are hopeful. At the moment, it is clear that for this to happen, we need to invest a lot more in developing the farm, so that we can successfully sell products grown on our own farm.
The Bekas farm is hosting more than 50 protected and endangered species of plants, animals and fungi. The beetle Osmoderma barnabita is the most symbolic of the endangered species that characterize wooded meadows. The orchid Orchis mascula is one of several species of orchids found on the farm. Our farming takes into account this superb nature diversity. Photo: V.Lārmanis
ENPLC: “Viesturs, all that impressive work with habitat restoration and restructuring the farm, it takes a lot of time and knowledge. Do you also share your knowledge with others?”
Indeed, the farm not only carries out grassland restoration, but also gathers a lot of data to be able to scientifically evaluate the success of restoration and to share the knowledge with everyone who is interested in restoration of grasslands and nature-friendly farming. In ecological studies botanists have found that in the best places in our meadows and pastures are more than 50 plant species per square meter, but entomologists on the territory of the farm have found 61 species of day butterflies and 117 species of wild bees. Such data, together with researchers’ notes on ecological aspects, help us to work more biodiversity friendly and to illustrate what level of biodiversity can be achieved in a productive farm. Various events take place at the farm, in which we ourselves and the invited specialists share experience and knowledge about management of seminatural grasslands. The events were made possible with the support of the GrassLIFE project, which helped to set up a seminar room and Meadowbuss – a visitor trailer that takes visitors on a route of several kilometres to see the landscape of our farm. People are interested in a wide range of topics – starting from cultural history of this place, to stories about the development of Wooded Meadows, and practical advice on farming in high nature value areas.
ENPLC: “Nature brings a lot of joy and we are proud of your commitment to manage with nature on your farm. But how about the economy of it, farming with so many restrictions?”
We do have a lot of restrictions in regards of intensity of grazing and improving grassland productivity, and nature sets its course, with regular floods and too much drought in sandy meadows. There is also a time period when no restoration can be done due to bird breeding season, and so on. But there are also benefits from farming on such exclusive areas. The quality of meat that we produce is very special. Our animals 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. And please do not interpret that only 200 species of plants are found on our farm. Actually, we have more than 500 species of plants on our farm, and at least 200 of them are those that cattle eat in their daily routine, not just occasionally. Watching cattle graze, it is possible to see that they often pick more than 20 different species of plants in just one minute, which is more than an industrial animal gets to enjoy in a lifetime. We are building our customer base with people who appreciate our story and we hope that it will improve the economy of the farm in the future. Currently we are still in the farm reform phase, our marketable livestock generation is still growing.
Our animals eat more than 200 different species of plants in their daily diet. The meat that we produce is very unique. Photo: V.Lārmanis
ENPLC: This is amazing to see your farm evolve along the years and notice that nature is striving. What are your plans for the future?
To ensure the financial sustainability of the farm, while protecting the nature on our land we need to sell our high-added-value products to visitors and the local communities around us. And we need to constantly think of new ways to promote our high nature value products. Society can express its support to the way of our farming by buying our products, but first we need to develop more products, in addition to meat and honey that we currently produce. The nature around us is rich with numerous bounties, we need to turn them into the products to sell. We are currently testing different wild plant and fruit recipes, but it would be not easy to compete with other farms if we just make locally sourced berry jam or something similar, as many others already offer that. Therefore, we try to find directions that are deeply rooted and symbolize the outstanding biodiversity of our land. It requires more thinking and work, but only through increased product uniqueness can we hope that people will take a long way to the outskirts of Latvia somewhere deep in the middle of the forest. I would like to remind our future customers – remember, in this remote deep forest there is a paradise of EU biodiversity 😊 What is grown on our farm is simply not possible anywhere else. You are welcome to visit us!
The farm is open to visitors, and there is a seminar center where different events related to grassland restoration are taking place. Photo: V.Lārmanis
Latvian Fund for Nature (LFN) works to preserve biological diversity by implementing a wide range of projects, educating society and raising public awareness on environmental issues. Among other priorities, LFN is especially interested in restoring natural areas and managing protected territories. LFN has successfully implemented many cross-border as well as LIFE projects.The visit from Latvia was funded by EU LIFE programme, as part of WoodMeadowLIFE project LIFE20 NAT/EE/000074.
