Agriculture

According to pollen analysis, slash-and-burn agriculture started in Finland 2000 BC. The shift from slash-and-burn practices to the cultivation of permanent fields occurred at various points in time in different parts of Finland. The reason for the decrease of slash-and-burn was the dwindling yield of the fields in comparison to permanent managed fields. Lower yields were due to the fact that the rotations in slash-and-burn agriculture had become too short resulting in a degradation of those areas. The increase in the value of forests by the 1860's and the decrease of applying slash-and-burn practices favoured commercial forest use.

Photos of Slash-and-Burn in HAMK Mustiala

Today there is agriculture all over Finland, though up in the north in Lapland this is mainly reindeer husbandry. Even if Finland lies between the paralles of latitude 60 and 70° N, farming is successful because the Gulf Stream keeps temperatures here 3° to 4° C higher than in other areas on these latitudes.

As Finland is nearly 1,100 kilometres long from north to south, there are considerable regional variations in the climate. The thermal growing season (the period with an average daily temperature of more than +5° C) varies from nearly 6 months in the south to between 2 and 3 months in the north. In Southern Finland, the growing season starts in late April and lasts until mid October. The total effective temperature sum is between 500° and 1,300° C per day, and the average total precipitation in the summer months is between 180 mm and 220 mm.

In Continental Europe, the growing season is 260 days long and in southern parts of the continent more than 300 days. This means that the 170-day growing season on our latitudes is too short for cultivars grown elsewhere. Thus, frost-resistant varieties have been developed that can absorb all the rays of daylight during our cool, short growing season. Because of this short growing season, Finnish cultivars do not yield as much as those in Central and Southern Europe. The harsh Finnish winters also reduce productivity as they restrict the cultivation of winter cereals. (MMM, 2001)