THE EFFICIENCY OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION ON DAIRY FARMS IN LATVIA

Abstract

As rising temperature, climate changes and growing greenhouse gas emissions are viewed as inevitable consequences of burning fossil fuels, energy consumers in different sectors of national economy are expected to contribute to the optimization of their energy consumption. Therefore, farmers need to develop sustainable means of agricultural production that are able to meet strict requirements for higher efficiency. The study aims to fill the gap in the literature by exploring the consumption of energy per livestock unit and per hectare of the utilized agricultural area on dairy farms of various sizes since Latvia�s accession to the EU. Our analysis is based on statistical data obtained from SUDAT � a national system that constitutes an integral part of the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The findings show that the efficiency of energy consumption considerably varies across the sector. It testifies to flexible approaches successfully adopted by milk producers who pragmatically combine various types of farming ranging from conventional to environmentally friendly practices.