ARC’s Hannes Lorenzen met Vytenis Grigas in July 2025, at a conference of the European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA) on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy and its new financial framework. Vytenis is a young farmer and board member of the Lithuanian Young Farmers Union which itself is member of CEJA. He is a lecturer in psychology and conflict resolution. At CEJA’s conference he spoke about his life as a newcomer to farming. Five years ago he started what he calls a “serious experiment for future farming”. On August 9, Hannes visited him in his village of Kiemeliai, near Vilnius. The following interview with Vytenis paints an encouraging picture of a newcomer to farming and a village that thrives with new people and initiatives.
HL: Thank you for having me at your farm and your house and letting me taste your delicious food from your garden. This place looks as if you could feed your family with what you grow.
VG: That is almost true. We have at least our main vegetables and fruit – which is already a lot. We had chickens and might have them again and we consume what we cannot sell from the farm. What we do appreciate is that we know what we eat. My wife and myself live a healthy lifestyle and we believe that farming is about sustaining our health. Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people.
Photo: Hannes Lorenzen
HL: You did not grow up on a farm. Who or what has drawn you out of the big city to a small village like Kiemeliai with just about a hundred inhabitants?
VG: I believe there were two main reasons. The first was that life in a city apartment was too small for my ambitions. The second was that my two grandfathers taught me to love gardening, tree planting and how to appreciate good food. As a child, I was often selling grandpa’s cucumbers in the street and had great success. People loved the taste of the fresh food. The other grandfather taught me how to plant and to prune trees. I do both now on my farm, growing vegetables and planting and grafting fruit trees. Since we built our house here in Kiemeliai nine years ago, we have co-created a new village life with other newcomers like us. It feels like we have arrived at the right place.
Win-win: Mushroom production with birch tree wood and drainage water, photo: Hannes Lorenzen
HL: You have started your farming experiment with quite a big uphill challenge. The land you bought is pretty wet and not specifically fertile. You invested a lot of money and worked into a sophisticated drainage system. What made you brave enough to start such a long term project like fruit farming?
VG: The challenge was and is the soil. But that is the case everywhere in farming. Without a living soil no experiment in future farming will succeed. I have read and watched a lot about permaculture, composting, mulching and soil life and I am trying to put that into practice. It works. New humus is building up quickly. Still I learn from my errors every year. I have planted a broad variety of fruit trees, strawberries, asparagus, pears, hazelnuts and mushrooms to sell on local and regional markets. This and last year the sweet cherries again had a lot of fungus problems – maybe that fruit tree is not good at this place and climate at the moment. With recent heavy rainfall the strawberries also suffered. We had to cut all the leaves after the harvest to avoid future fungus infection. I observe a lot of different factors which I must respect, like the varieties I choose, resilience of the crop, soil indicators, marketing moments, and conservation of the fruit. It must all fit together. That is why I call this enterprise an experiment. There is so much theory and advice around, but I must find out myself and adapt my farming to my own findings. Permaculture principles help me to pilot through those challenges.
photo: Hannes Lorenzen
HL: You are producing for the local market mainly also because you sell fresh fruit and vegetables. How do your consumers support your experiment?
VG: I think without building up trust and close relations with our consumers we would not be able to succeed. They need to value our products and understand our difficulties. So far my wife and I are doing the work together. Sometimes our hands are not enough. Then we ask our customers to help with harvesting and they get their food at a fair but lower price.
Photo: Hannes Lorenzen
HL: You are surrounded by other farmers who continue conventional practices and use chemicals and synthetic fertilisers. How do you get along with them in the village?
VG: Our village is like two worlds in one. The old village is made up of former kolkhoz workers who have found new work – or not – or former kolkhoz managers who became new landlords because they could take a lot of land after the system changed. The new village is made up of people like us who moved here and started different new businesses like the “Lavender village” including rural tourism, a dog breeder and trainer, or the summer community village with guest houses. The old villagers are mainly retired and old people. The new villagers are people of my age.They try or experiment with the rural life as our family does. There is not much exchange between the two worlds but transition is taking place as the old generation passes and the new generation will hopefully expand.
HL: Your ambition to further develop the farm needs a stable income during the experimental phase. How do you manage that challenge?
Photo: Hannes Lorenzen
VG: My main income still comes from lecturing. I studied psychology and conflict management and give lectures in different parts of the country. I am also working in garden maintenance and tree planting in different places of the village. That fits well together to be present here in the village and to have the necessary resources for my new farming project.
HL: Lithuania is seen in the rest of Europe as a place where big landowners and investment companies control a lot of land and with it a big chunk of EU subsidies, including big investors in the organic sector. Is that an issue among farmers or in the public debate?
VG: Yes it is. Since early on, we, Lithuanian young farmers, have warned our Farm Ministry that most of our farmers lose out against a handful of land grabbing companies. Just this year a large organic so-called cooperative (AUGA) faced a major economic turmoil. They had invested into an immense project for developing methane tractors and that project failed. It would not have happened if our ministry had imposed a ceiling for EU subsidies to those big land owners. Member states can do that according to EU rules. Now that public money is lost for future farming projects. In my view this type of farm policy is even a question of national food security.
Hannes Lorenzen (left) and Vytenis Grigas (right). photo by wife of Vytenis Grigas
HL: You seem to be busy on many fields: the job in lecturing; the new farm; the tree planting and grafting; your role at a Lithuanian young farmers organisation and at CEJA. And this struggle against land grabbing. At CEJA’s conference in Brussels young farmers were worried about future CAP funding because it competes with money needed for EU security. How do you look into the future?
VG: To be honest I am not sure whether I will be able to make further investments in the coming two years at least. One reason is of course how much or less the EU will do for farming in general and young farmers like me. The other is the geopolitical mindset of our close neighbors. We will have to stay optimistic and look at what we can do here in the village and how we keep the pioneer spirit alive. And we are. It is clear that the EU support for farmers will be reduced given the concerns over EU’s security and increased defence spending, which I find logical in the current geopolitical context. All farmers will have to tighten their belts. However, I remain optimistic about organic farming, as more and more people in Lithuania are looking for such products. This trend is driving me forward.
Teaser photo credit: Vytenis explains his farm drainage system, photo: Hannes Lorenzen