While agriculture remains one of the main pollution sources of the Venta and Lielupe RBD rivers in Lithuania and Latvia, solution of environmental problems largely depends on the farmers awareness of the status of the surrounding environment and willingness to apply more friendly farming practices.

One of the main objectives of the LLI-49 project CATCH POLLUTION was to extend the knowledge about catch crops as an efficient and economically justified measure for protection of water resources and share this knowledge with farmers and stakeholders to facilitate better acceptance and wider application of this promising management practice.

As the project is approaching to the end, we can already conclude that its mission to spread the knowledge and raise the interest in application of catch crops was successful. During the project, 8 informational events -field days – were organised in Venta and Lielupe RBDs in Lithuania and Latvia where farmers and stakeholders were introduced to catch crop growing technologies and a wide range of catch crop effects and benefits. Over 200 farmers, stakeholders, representatives from NGOs and scientific institutions participated in the project organised events. The project team sincerely believes that that the knowledge provided by the project will contribute to a wider application of environmentally friendly farming practices and lead to improvement of Lithuanian and Latvian river status.