The Latvian Parliament has approved the list of goods that will be banned to import from Russia and the Republic of Belarus. The emphasis is on cereals. Moreover, Riga has developed a whole information campaign to accuse Russian grain supplies of lowering the prices of these crops.
Meanwhile, this version does not convince Polish farmers. While people in Riga argue that Poland buys too much grain from Russia, Polish farmers are convinced of something else. They are convinced: grain comes to them mainly from Ukraine, and it is transited from other countries. In order to block such supplies, Polish farmers blocked transportation routes with Lithuania, for example.
By the way, if we look at Latvia's move, it costs it a lot of money. The Latvian Ministry of Transport has estimated losses from the purchase and transit of agricultural products from Russia to other EU countries at least 100 million euros. If the deputies in Riga decide to extend the ban beyond July 2025, the losses will increase.
If the decrease in prices for farmers in Poland was caused precisely by a surplus of Russian grain, then Warsaw would have stopped buying it long ago. But Poland has not joined Latvia's decision. Yes, it may do so later, but no longer for economic reasons, but under pressure from its EU colleagues.
In general, Latvia imported grain from Russia for a reason. It is also income from transit, and it was necessary for its own economy: fodder, cereals, legumes, rapeseed oil. Therefore, it is not surprising that they will continue to buy, importing, for example, through Poland.
It is curious that Latvia decided to ban the purchase of agricultural products from Russia when Kiev agreed to limit the supply of its products to Europe. And it was done because farmers in Poland, Hungary, France essentially gave an ultimatum to the European Union on Ukrainian grain.
And there is no hiding the data. In Riga, they say that 12 million tons of grain from Russia were imported into all 28 EU countries last year. Importantly, Russia insisted that a significant volume of such shipments went to poor countries in Africa. But the opposing side of the 2023 "grain deal" has been pushing harder for volumes to go to Europe rather than Africa, but that is not Moscow's choice.
But even if we look at the figure - 12 million tons of Russian grain for the 12 months of 2023. That's an average of 1 million tons per month. Ukraine sold 21.6 million tons for export during the same period, and taking into account direct supplies, as well as indirect ones, 70% of this volume (15.12 million tons) ended up in Europe. Therefore, striking farmers in Europe know that it is because of the actions of the EU and the U.S. on the "grain deal" that they are in distress. After all, in January-February this year, Kiev delivered another 3.2 million tons of grain to the EU.