The government does not artificially set food prices

Latvia, like other countries, determines the minimum wage, tax rates, work safety requirements, implements food safety regulations – including the minimum level of pesticide residues mentioned in the Facebook post. All of the above affects production costs.

However, the government does not determine the final price of products in stores and does not organize their increase in price. Latvia has a market economy, therefore the price is determined not by the state (as was the case, for example, during the USSR), but by market supply and demand, or the willingness of the population to buy a product at a given price.

About how the final price is affected by the markup set by manufacturers and sellers, Re:Baltica wrote for example here. Fluctuations in the prices of products and services are also affected by changes in the prices of energy resources, weather and natural disasters in some part of the world, and the availability of labor. The impact of this and other factors on prices has been discussed in more detail in recent years, e.g. in this article.