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The Minister of Agriculture Opens the LVM Mežvidi Nursery Complex

On 5 April, Minister of Agriculture Armands Krauze and Chairman of the Board of JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) Pēters Putniņš opened the seedling sorting and processing complex of the Mežvidi nursery in Jaunkalsnava, Kalsnava Municipality. The construction works of the LVM Mežvidi nursery were started in July 2022 and completed in December 2023, with the company investing 17.61 million euros. The 8 000 square metre seedling sorting and processing complex of the Mežvidi nursery contains production facilities, seedling freezers and administrative premises of the nursery, as well as an additional inventory and equipment storage warehouse with an area of 500 square metres.

At the opening ceremony, Minister of Agriculture Armands Krauze said: “By using selected seedlings and scientifically based forest tending models in forest cultivation, we will reduce climate change in Latvia and introduce green deal solutions that meet our country's capabilities. We must continue the Latvian way of life and traditions – we must plant, cultivate and manage the forest, but at the same time we must be able to create products with high added value.”

It is planned that 15 million seedlings will be grown every year in the Mežvidi nursery for reforestation – pine, spruce and a few deciduous trees. On the territory of the nursery, a unique birch seed plantation is also being built, which in the future will make a significant contribution to the production of selected, genetically high-quality seedlings. The investments made in the construction and development of LVM tree nurseries by 2028 will allow LVM to increase the number of tree seedlings grown, reaching the total volume of grown seedlings – 68 million seedlings per year, thus strengthening the leading position in the production of seedlings in the Baltic States.

Chairman of the LVM Board Pēters Putniņš highlights the importance of quality seedlings in the development of Latvian forestry: “LVM has been entrusted with a nationally important task – to sustainably take care of the national forests, so that they provide both the resources necessary for the national economy and the recreational needs of the population, as well as preserve the diversity of nature. A new and strong forest begins here, in tree nurseries, by nurturing carefully selected forest seedlings from seed. LVM is already doing and will continue to do everything to ensure that high-quality pine, spruce and birch seedlings are available to every forester in Latvia for reforestation.”

In the most ambitious building competition in Latvia – the Latvian Construction of the Year Award 2023, the seedling sorting and processing complex of the Mežvidi nursery ranked first in the nomination “Wooden structure”. The new building of the complex is an excellent example of the use of wood in construction, also in the construction of production and warehouse facilities. In general, 600 m3 of wood was used in the construction of the Mežvidi nursery complex – both in the load-bearing structures and the decoration. The span of the longest beam reaches 30 metres, and the height exceeds 2 metres.

Other sustainable and green construction solutions are also planned in the building: solar panels for electricity production, solar collectors for water heating, LED lighting; rainwater will be collected from the roof of the building, which will be used for watering plants.

LVM sustainably manages 1.62 million hectares of state land, sequestering 4.1 million tonnes of CO2 annually. Since establishing the company in 1999, LVM has contributed 1.46 billion euros to the state budget. During this time, 289.3 thousand hectares of forests have been restored in the state forests of Latvia, with several million selected forest seedlings of the highest quality being planted every year. To ensure high-quality and high-yielding future forest seedlings, LVM owns 10 nurseries with a total area of 434 hectares. A total of more than 939 million high-quality forest seedlings have been grown in the nurseries of LVM Sēklas und stādi.