GLOBAL AND LOCAL CHALLENGES IN THE CULTIVATION OF FOOD AND ENERGY CROPS

Energy and food production recourses have never been considered to be competitive elements in Latvia to date, however, active public and political discussion is within the context of globalization. With the participation in international agreements, the production of the "green energy" and limitation of green house gases has substantially affected the production of farms in Latvia. The present article examines the development of international discussion, as well as different scenarios of land exploitation alternatives are analyzed both by the amount of produced energy and profitability per ha(-1). The described results in the article show that utilization of cattle-breeding manure is less effective by output amount per identical amount of agricultural land area. Comparing the profitability of alternatives - food (winter wheat) or energy (electricity from maize), energy production is more profitable.