Teenager in Jelgava region grows thousands of watermelons on 1.6 hectares
Still a schoolboy, Emīls Nils Gaišprātis manages a 1.6-hectare watermelon field near Jelgava, saying the business can turn a profit in Latvia but will never make anyone a millionaire.
In the Jelgava region, a young grower named Emīls Nils Gaišprātis is cultivating watermelons on a 1.6-hectare plot. His interest began at age ten, when a single packet of seeds produced a nine-kilogram watermelon. Still attending school, he now oversees a field that yields thousands of watermelons each season.
The field sits alongside a road, where a tent has been set up for direct sales, allowing passing drivers to stop and buy fresh watermelons on the spot. Emīls says his working day on the farm typically starts around six in the morning and stretches until eleven at night.
A business built without family backing
He stresses that no one in his family has an agricultural background, and that the watermelon venture was started entirely from scratch, without owning land or having prior experience. In the first year, only three seedlings were planted in a greenhouse; by the following year, the operation expanded to 3,000 seedlings planted outdoors, with the family investing all of its savings — around 10,000 euros. At that point, there was no guarantee the investment would pay off or that the harvest could even be sold.
Profitable, but not without risk
Asked whether the business is profitable, Emīls says money can be made, but it will never make someone a millionaire. He also points to weather as a major risk: a single hailstorm could wipe out the funds invested that year, while money would still be needed to plant next year's crop, leaving the farm operating at a loss.
