IENICA REPORT: FINLAND
Executive
summary
Oil crops
Fibre crops
Carbohydrate
crops
Agriculture
in Finland
Executive Summary
The objectives of this report are to document the state of knowledge on industrial crops and crop related processes, markets and uses of industrial crops and their products in Finland.
It has been estimated that about 1 million hectares of arable land will be set aside from food production in Finland before the end of this century. If most of this land is abandoned, the consequences for employment in and development of rural areas will be detrimental. The overproduction of food crops has directed research efforts towards various non-food utilisation of either traditional crops and new introduced species.
Climate conditions are decisive for crop production in Finland. Cultivation of wheat and oil-seed plants is restricted to southern Finland while barley, oats, grasses and potatoes can be cultivated in most parts of the country. The shorter growing season brings considerably lower yields than for central European countries. For the majority of field crops, the producer prices do not cover the costs of production. The EU subsidy policy and realization of Agenda 2000 will largely determine which crops are profitable for the grower and are thus chosen for cultivation in the future.
1. Oil crops. The most cultivated oil crop is spring turnip rape in Finland. Small to medium scale production of industrial products from oil crops already exists in Finland and the amount of industrial applications is slowly growing. The industrial products include lubricants, hydraulic oils, bio-fixers for plant protection chemicals as well as wood protectants and anti-rust oils. Pharmaceutical products are under development, and the paint industry is interested in developing new, more environmentally friendly products based on vegetable oils. The amount of available raw material and the domestic markets are generally too small for large scale industry to specialise in the technical uses of oil crops. Many of the larger companies are likely to continue having both food and non-food applications in their product range.
2. Fibre crops. In recent years Finland has been importing short fibre raw material (birch) for making pulp and paper. Production of crops which could replace short fibre wood cellulose are an interesting new group of plants. If the processing can be organised, the cultivation of such crops could take up a large part of the available surplus land in the future. The greatest interest at present is in reed canary grass, which gives relatively high biomass and fibre yields in the Finnish climate. In 1998, reed canary grass was cultivated experimentally on 600 ha, but there is no market for it in the industrial sector to date. The main obstacles are economical and further research and demonstration work are needed.
The cultivation of hemp was rediscovered in Finland only a couple of years ago. The cultivation methodology in our conditions is not yet well established. At present industrial processing of hemp fibres is under development. Technical uses, such as thermal insulation, are apparently the best potential applications. Small scale industry exists for processing flax fibres. It is mainly specialised in manufacturing textiles and other products from organically cultivated raw material. The use of fibres which are obtained as by-products from linseed cultivation is investigated. The potential applications include, for example, reinforced composites and growth substances.
3. Carbohydrate crops. Starch is the most important industrial crop product in Finland, and the paper industry will continue using it. Northern growing conditions are especially favourable for barley, which contains here unusually high amounts of starch. The potato starch quota and EU subsidy policy are the most important factors determining the amounts of production. The strengths of the Finnish starch industry are highly developed processing methodology and good quality raw materials. Finland is one of the leading countries considering the technological know-how about the use of starch products in the paper industry. Active research is considerable, and there are good facilities for performing this research.
The production of starch based biodegradable polymers has been intensively studied and practical applications have been developed, some of which are now in a pilot phase. New potential products have also been developed and e.g. the use of poly(lactic acid) in the production of biodegradable polymers has been studied. The future of such products is, however, very much dependent on the development of common infrastructure, legislation and political decisions.
4. Crops with specialist uses. Several aromatic plants cultured or recently domesticated in Finland contain highly bioactive compounds. The application of these compounds in natural health products or in green chemicals including pharmaceuticals, preservatives and biopesticides are studied. In the production of herbs, Finland has the advantage of a non-polluted environment, the amounts of heavy metals are considerably lower than in many other European countries. In addition, weather conditions inhibit the growth of many pests and disease organisms, which is a benefit for the organic production of herbs. The knowledge of cultivation and processing methods is clearly at an expert level in such areas that the Finnish producers have specialised in. However, natural health products form a very large and diverse product group, which is still developing and a lot of research is still needed. The lack of co-ordination between numerous different small projects seems to be a particular problem in this area. Furthermore, the market demand for such products is limited even in central Europe, and therefore the cultivation area required in the future production of specialist plants is probably going to be well below that for carbohydrate and fibre crops. In spite of the relatively small cultivation area of crops with specialist use, the economical value of such crops can be high.
Agriculture in Finland
Finland is a republic which is situated in northern Europe, between the 60th and 70th latitudes bordering Sweden, Norway and Russia. Finland became a member of European Union in the beginning of 1995. The population of Finland is about 5,1 million, which is only 16 inhabitants per square km. Gross domestic product of agriculture have been decreasing in recent years being 1,3 % at this moment. Today only 5 % of labour force works in agricultural sector, when in 1980 the amount was over 10 %. Finnish agriculture is mainly based on family farms and in 1998 private individuals owned 80 % of all farms. Number of farms is now 140 000 (90 000 active farms), whereas it was 225 000 fifteen years ago. The amount of farms is still decreasing. Main reasons for that are high production costs and low prices of agricultural products. The average area of arable land per farm has increased slowly from 10,96 ha to 15,84 ha in 1980-1996.
Total land area of Finland is 337 000 square km of which 59 % is forest, 20 % waste land and peat land, 9 % lakes, 8 % arable land and 4 % built area. Finland is 1100 km long in south-north direction. The climatic conditions in various parts of the country vary considerably. In Southern Finland, the growing season is 170 days, but in north it is only 100 days. There is a lot of variation in the effective temperature sum, too: in the south it is 1300 and in the north 500 degree days. Precipitation during the growing season is usually 200-500 mm.
In 1996 the total amount of arable land was 2,6 million hectare of which 2,1million hector was cultivated. Most of the arable land (42 %) is used for growing cereals, especially barley and oats and for grass cultivation (27 %). The rest of the land is used for growing oil plants (2 %), sugar-beets (1 %) and potatoes (1%). The amount of fallow field (7 %) and other land (18 %) is also rather high. Cultivation of wheat and oil-seed plants is restricted to Southern Finland meanwhile barley, oats, grasses and potatoes can be cultivated in most parts of the country. Animal husbandry, especially milk production is the most profitable production form in most parts of the country. The shorter growing season brings about considerably lower yield levels of the field crop species than what is case in the Central European countries. For example in 1996 the annual yield of barley was 3430 kg/ha, oats 3370 kg/ha, wheat 4080 kg/ha, rye 2460 kg/ha, sugar-beets 25840 kg/ha and oil plants 1450 kg/ha.
Research and development of non food plant production started in late 80’s. Paper industry uses starch, which is the most important commercial non food product in Finland. Development of other non food products is going on and most promising species like reed canary grass, hemp, linseed and some herbal species are now in research and pilot stage. Production of non food plants could be one alternative for Finnish farmers, and cultivation of them may also help slowing down the depopulation from rural areas of Finland. The main bottleneck in non food-production is processing and commercial use of new products. Further research and demonstration work is needed to make the production economically profitable.
More information about agriculture in Finland is available at:
http://www2.mtt.fi/english/ (Agricultural Research Centre of Finland)
http://www.mmm.fi (Ministry of Agriculture)
http://agronet.fi/english.html (Agriculture in general..)