Latvia has made significant progress in implementing its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan for 2023–2027, with several environmental and climate indicators already exceeding their 2027 targets in 2025. This was reported by the Ministry of Agriculture to the Government on Tuesday, August 25th.
The report assesses progress towards the environmental and climate indicators set out in the CAP Strategic Plan. Performance is assessed using a common CAP performance, monitoring and evaluation framework developed by the European Commission. Data for 2024 and 2025 show that progress towards the targets is increasing each year. In 2025, the targets set for 2027 were already exceeded in several environmental and climate areas, including climate change adaptation, carbon storage in soil and biomass, improved air quality, nutrient management and reduced use of pesticides. This demonstrates the strong interest among farmers to participate in these CAP support measures.
In areas where progress towards the targets has been slower, such as organic farming, biodiversity and forestry, support conditions and payment rates have been reviewed to encourage greater farmer participation.
The CAP Strategic Plan is one of the key instruments for promoting more sustainable farming practices. Of the Plan’s total funding, 47.5% is allocated to climate change mitigation and environmental objectives. CAP support helps implement enhanced environmental requirements, agri-environmental measures, eco-schemes, environmental investments and sustainable forest management measures.
Measures under the CAP Strategic Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon dioxide (CO2) removals are being implemented in line with the priorities and targets set out in Latvia’s updated National Energy and Climate Plan for 2021–2030. The development of the CAP Strategic Plan also took into account Latvia’s commitments to reduce ammonia emissions and the measures for reducing emissions from the agricultural sector set out in the “Action Plan for Reducing Air Pollutant Emissions 2020–2030”.
Latvia implements a range of environmental and climate measures, with the CAP Strategic Plan serving as one of the instruments for achieving these objectives. Experience to date shows that the measures and funding available under the CAP Strategic Plan alone cannot ensure that all of Latvia’s climate and environmental commitments are met. Other national policy instruments and measures are therefore also needed.