Owner LV / 2024 (January)
Saldus County, Lutriņu Parish, on a farm Pilafs has been run by Eduards Šmits for almost 30 years. Although he is an economist by education, he once decided to farm in the countryside at his parents’ house, rather than pursue a career in the financial sector in the capital.
Currently, Eduards is a full-time rural entrepreneur, manages more than 700 ha of land and grows wheat, rapeseed, beans and also peas.
The soil in the farm is like in Kurzeme, where you can’t complain about diversity in this respect – one field can have both clay and peat and sand.
The beginnings of farming
Farm Pilafs was established by Eduard’s parents in the early 90s of the last century. Unlike many other farmers of the time, they were given areas for use because there were no inherited lands to reclaim. At that time, Eduards was still studying at school, he, like the other three children in the family, had to work a lot on the farm. “I officially founded the farm in 1996, after completing my studies at the Faculty of Economics of the Latvian University of Biosciences and Technologies (formerly Latvian University of Agriculture), right before graduation,” recalls Eduards.
Since the farm was not initially big enough to live and develop from its income alone, Eduards worked as a paid job in parallel. “At that time, I called farming an extreme hobby, because I invested all my free time and earned salary in the development of the farm,” recalls the owner…
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