|
Finland Farm Production Patterns
Unavailable
Figure 16. Agriculture and Forestry, 1985
Source: Based on information from Federal Republic of Germany, Statistisches
Bundesamt, Länderbericht Finnland, 1986, Wiesbaden, 1986, 9.
During most of the twentieth century, Finnish farmers
have
favored raising animals over growing plants for human
consumption. These preferences resulted in part from the
country's climate and soils, which were more suitable for
the
production of feed for animals than for the production of
crops
for human consumption. The small size of many farms also
encouraged the emphasis on milk, eggs, and meat; only on a
large
farm could a family earn sufficient income from less
laborintensive field crops. Thus, in the late 1980s, about 40
percent
of farm income came from milk; 30 percent, from meat; 9
percent,
from grain; 5 percent, from eggs; and 16 percent, from
other
products (see
table 16, Appendix A).
Regional ecological variations influenced the
distribution of
agricultural production
(see
fig. 16). In the southern and
western parts of the country, where the climate is more
favorable
and soils are richer, farmers generally produced grain,
poultry,
and pigs, while in the north and the east they specialized
in
hardier root crops and in dairying. It was in the north,
too,
that the country's 200,000 reindeer, one-third of which
were
owned by Lapps were raised.
In the late 1980s, cattle operations remained the
mainstay of
farming, but Finland's farmers also raised pigs, poultry,
and
other animals. Most pigs were raised on relatively large,
specialized farms. Poultry production increased after the
mid1960s to accommodate an increased demand for meat. A more
recent
development, a response to the oversupply of traditional
animal
products, was a shift to fur farming. By the mid-1980s,
about
6,000 farms, especially those in Vaasa Province along the
coast
of the Gulf of Bothnia, were producing a substantial share
of the
world's mink and fox furs
(see
fig. 1). The Finns exported
most
furs, but some were used domestically in luxury clothing.
About 85 percent of Finland's arable land supplied feed
for
farm animals. Farmers dedicated more than 30 percent of
their
land to hay, silage crops, and pasture (see
table 17,
Appendix
A). Grains, the most important field crop, took up
slightly more
than half the country's arable land. The most widely
planted
grain crops--barley and oats--were used primarily to feed
livestock. Rutabagas and mangels, particularly hardy root
crops,
also served as animal feed.
Despite the emphasis on producing feed for livestock,
the
Finns made substantial efforts to ensure supplies of basic
human
foodstuffs. By the 1980s, the annual wheat and rye crops,
used
for making bread, met domestic demand in years with normal
harvests. Potatoes produced high yields even in the north,
and
the potato crop was usually large enough for domestic
needs.
Domestic sugar beets provided about half of the sugar
consumed in
the country. Some farmers, especially those with small
holdings
near large cities, specialized in growing vegetables; they
managed to raise as much as 80 percent of the vegetables
consumed
in Finland.
Data as of December 1988
|
