FACTORS INFLUENCING CHANGES OF BEEF CATTLE HERD QUANTITY AND SIZE: CASE OF LATVIA

Beef production volumes in Latvia have been different over a long period of time, beef output growth has been noted, as well as its sharp decrease, so it is important to analyze, what are the most important factors that are affecting beef production volumes, that will give an idea of the possibilities for beef market regulation. Consequently, the study objective can be defined: Identify factors affecting beef production in Latvia. For this research statistical methods, correlation analysis, induction, deduction, analysis and synthesis were used. These methods gave an accurate picture of factors that are affecting beef production volumes. According to the results, it can be concluded that beef production volumes are significantly affected by such factors as demand for beef. The results of this research indicate that Latvia beef production volumes are affected by the market demand. As an essential factor for increasing the number of beef cattle in Latvia, export opportunities are available where increasing amount of fresh or chilled beef exported in EUR is increasing the number of suckler cows, where there is a close positive relationship (r = 0.76), which indicates an increase in demand from Latvian meat beef holding output. The quality of the soil in the region and climatic conditions will affect the specialization of farms. The largest number of bovine animals is grown in regions of Vidzeme and Latgale, where average cereal production is lowest per hectare. Pierīga and Zemgale regions have high crop yields on average per hectare, so in this region the number of bovine animals is the smallest.