ENAJ LBPT Finland: Farming at Europe’s northern limit

The trip to Southwest Finland was a big success: 26 agricultural journalists from 10 EU countries visited the northern country with the happiest people in the world. The programme provided plenty of material for stories – here, we will focus on just a few of the distinctive features of Finnish agriculture and some of the encounters with farmers.

Farming and fighting are kept together

If you want to understand the Finnish mindset, you need to look at the history. During the visit to the Sarka Agricultural Museum in Loimaa, the journalists learned why agriculture plays such an important role in Finland. Timo Kaunisto from Agronommiliitto explained: “The Nordic defense is based on farmers and countryside.” Repeated aggressions from Russia since the 17th century showed that a self-sufficient food supply is important to survive. The consequence is that farming and fighting are kept together in Finland. Since becoming a member of the EU in 1995, the structure of Finnish agriculture has been changing and the number of farms has reduced from 80,000 to 40,000. Nevertheless, the levels of self-sufficiency in food products are high (except fruit and vegetables because of climate conditions).

Happy pigs have curly tails

A good example of the high standards in Finnish agriculture is the nationwide ban on tail docking in piglets. Although tail docking has been banned across the EU since 2002, this ban has hardly been enforced in other countries. We met Timo Heikkilä, a piglet producer in Rusko, who is famous beyond Finland for his innovative production methods. He sees advantages in pigs with tails: on the one hand, the tail is an indicator of well-being; on the other hand, society has greater respect for farmers who are committed to animal welfare. “You can tell a pig’s welfare by its tail”, he says, “a stressed animal’s tail hangs down, whereas a happy pig’s tail curls up.”

The key to preventing tail biting is to ensure light, fresh air and tools for stimulating activity like rubber sticks or straw. At Heikkilä Farm, pigs always have access to fresh straw, which is provided in feeding troughs.

To protect the environment, Timo Heikkilä has developed an innovative slurry management system: the liquid fraction of the slurry, which has a low phosphorus content, is distributed to 500 hectares of surrounding fields via an 11 km long pipe system. The dry, phosphorus-rich fraction is supplied to farms in need of fertiliser.

Arable farming with focus on healthy soils

As a consequence of the short vegetation period, little rainfall in spring and restricted use of fertilisers, the average yields of arable crops are not as high in the Southwest of Finland as in Western European countries. To ensure their farms remain profitable, Finnish farmers place great emphasis on soil health. One of them is Ilmari Hunsa, who manages 240 hectares of arable land and 100 hectares of woodland in Nousiainen. He uses the strip-till method to minimise soil disturbance, he uses liming and he has implemented a diverse eight-crop rotation. As the planting of winter crops is difficult – many plants cannot withstand the cold period – he uses cover crops. Ilmari Hunsa also participates in a soil scanning project which allows precise fertilising, and he uses satellite monitoring and a nitrogen tester to measure the real-time nitrogen needs of the plants.

Farm and seed company in one

Some of the seed Finnish farmers use in Southern Finland comes from Seedfarm Salo, a family farm and business in Mellilä, Loimaa. The farm and company are led by the brothers Niilo and Santeri Salo and their parents Markku and Päivi Salo. Seedfarm Salo is a member of the Tilasiemen chain, a nationwide network of independent seed-packing specialists in Finland.

Niilo Salo explains the success story of the family business: with nearly 30 years of experience, the Salo family has specialised in professional seed production covering a diverse range of crops (cereals, pulses and oilseeds, forages and grasses) on 380 hectares. The seeds are stored in six silos with a capacity of 4,000 tonnes and six more silos with the same capacity are under construction. The packaging also takes place on the farm and the products are delivered directly to customers. Niilo Salo attributes their success to the trust of their customers. On the one hand, they are farmers just like their customers, and on the other, they have first-hand experience because they also carry out variety trials for Tilasiemen on their own farm.

Early potatoes despite frosty nights

In Parainen, the most south-westerly part of Finland’s agricultural area, the soils are more sandy and the climate is a bit warmer than in other Finnish regions. Here Nulto Farm is located, where Roger Lindroos cultivates a broad variety of crops on 500 hectares. As early as the 1990s, he specialised, among other things, in the cultivation of early potatoes at Nulto Farm. Early potatoes are a seasonal delicacy for midsummer in Finland and achieve good prices. The effort involved is considerable: Roger Lindroos plants in March and during growth the plants are protected by a plastic layer. On frosty nights the plastic surface is irrigated and the freezing of the water releases heat, which protects the plants. The harvest starts in May and it differs a lot from the common use of harvesters: in order to protect the delicate skin, the plants are completely pulled out of the sandy ground and harvest workers carefully pick the potatoes from the plants. Roger Lindroos also grows raspberries, grain legumes, oilseeds and, of course, cereals. But he has made a conscious decision not to grow cereals on a large scale, as these crops can also be successfully cultivated in other regions of Finland.

All the farmers and businesses – including those not featured here – had one thing in common: a deep passion for farming and their profession. Our impression was that Finland is not only the country with the happiest people, but also with the happiest farmers.