Latvia's border berry pickers contend with deforestation and emigration

This year, the blueberry and chanterelle harvest in the border forests is not as abundant as four years ago, but after a three-year break, when there were almost no blueberries, berry and mushroom pickers are once again going to the forest to collect nature's gifts. Although the purchase prices of berries and mushrooms are high this year, the harvested volume is much smaller than before. On a weekday afternoon in the village of Goliševa, Ludza region, which is located just a few kilometres from the Latvian-Russian border, local residents gather in the square to sell blueberries and chanterelles picked in the surrounding forests to commercial buyers, who take them away and sell them on. Photo: Iveta Čigāne / LSM Latgales redakcija Melleņu un gaileņu uzpirkšana Goliševā Andris, a local resident of Goliševa, earns money in his free time by picking blueberries. "We drive about four to five kilometres for berries. My dad and I got up at six in the morning and set off, picking until about eleven [in the morning]. I have two buckets, my dad picked three. There aren't many berries this year. There weren't any last year either. We picked in a special place, just us and two other people," Andris said. He also discovered that picking berries in the forest is not easy – there are thunder storms and mosquitoes all around, and the squatting and bending over makes your back hurt. Nevertheless, it is an opportunity to earn some money. "For two buckets, as my dad told me, I can earn 40 euros. I'll go tomorrow and it will be 80 euros for two days. Very good," said Andris. Goliševa parish in Ludza region has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Therefore, for years, local residents have used the approximately four-week blueberry season as an opportunity to earn money. They go to the forest to pick berries and hand them over to buyers to get some very useful extra cash. "Here's the job - picking berries and mushrooms. I don't think there's anything else here. Only those with more or less healthy backs can pick mushrooms and berries. I picked chanterelles while kneeling," one middle-aged man admitted. Locals said that the forest products business is in decline, as a large part of the berry and mushroom forests have been cut down, and the weather conditions have not been favorable for the last three years - there have been frosts in the spring. Photo: Iveta Čigāne / LSM Latgales redakcija The number of berry pickers themselves has also decreased, as many of the village residents have gone abroad for work. There is even a community in Norway nicknamed the 'second Goliševa'. Berry buyer Ivars, who has been working in this field for 20 years, also admitted that the berry and mushroom business is going through a dip. "There have been no blueberries for three years. Nothing yet with the other berries – lingonberries and cranberries. When we started working, it was very good. Now a lot of forests are being cut down. Mostly older people pick berries, young people rarely go to the forest," Ivars pointed out. During the day, his minibus was loaded with about 500 kilogrammes of berries and about 300 kilograms of chanterelles. "It's not much. There used to be a lot more. Last year was a very wet summer. There were a lot of mushrooms. There were even times when we stopped [buying], no one needed mushrooms. There were no berries on our side. There were some in other places in Latvia, but not here," Ivars recalls. From Goliševa he travels to Ludza, because that's where people hand over their forest produce to the purchasing point. Buyer Ināra said that work at the purchasing point starts in May and continues until Autumn, when the cranberry harvest ends. Photo: Iveta Čigāne / LSM Latgales redakcija "We tell them the price, and people pass it on. Blueberries go for 3.50 euros per kilogramme, and chanterelles for 5 euros per kilogramme. Good prices now," said buyer Ināra. The forest products handed over by residents are delivered by buyers for processing and transferred to wholesale bases. For many years, the company "Pharmeko Lettland" has been purchasing berries and mushrooms in Madona, processing some of them and exporting some abroad. The company's representative Sigita Krusiete pointed out that people are handing over less and less forest products. "The fact that forests are cut down means that fewer people remain, and then there are also years of poor harvests. "In the past, we were only involved in buying forest produce. We also managed to set up a factory that produces juices, juice concentrates, purees and berry powders, so this saves us from having to say one day that we as a company could no longer exist solely with the production of frozen berries. Therefore, we buy cultivated berries from farmers and continue with forest produce, but also make something more. That's how we can exist, otherwise, who knows how we would have fared," Krusiete explained. Like large processing companies, berry and mushroom pickers in the border zones are also forced to adapt to changes. As berry and mushroom picking areas dwindle, they travel further and further in search of new picking locations. However, due to deforestation, such places are becoming fewer and fewer.