Agricultural Cooperation in Sweden

Abstract

SWEDISH economic life, including agriculture, has undergone many far-reaching developments in the last 60 years. In 1870 Sweden was an agricultural country with a total population of 4,170,000, of which 72.4 per cent was engaged in agriculture, forestry, and fishing. By 1934 she had developed into an industrial country of 6,230,000 inhabitants, only 37.7 per cent of whom were engaged in these pursuits. Even if agriculture has thus declined relatively, and with reference to total farm population even absolutely, so has productivity risen approximately in proportion to the increase in total population and to the rise in standard of living. This means that the population of the cduntry as a whole now, in at least as high a degree as formerly, satisfies its requirements for the principal food products by domestic production. Since 1870, production of vegetable products has increased by somewhat more than 100 per cent, and of animal products by more than 200 per cent. This development, so far as concerns agriculture, has meant a shift from a self-sufficing economy to an exchange economy. Whereas the sale of agricultural products about 1870 must have been very small indeed, as indicated by total agricultural production and by the division of population as between agriculture and other gainful pursuits, it now exceeds considerably 800,000,000 kr. and is approximately two-thirds of the aggregate agricultural output. Of this total sale value, milk and creamery products constitute approximately 43 per cent, pork and other meats about 25 per cent, eggs and poultry products 6 per cent, grain about 18 per cent, and potatoes and sugar beets 3 and 5 per cent, respectively. Requirements of agriculture for purchased goods have increased correspondingly. Annual purchases of commercial fertilizers and feed concentrates now amount to about 150,000,000 kr., and of agricultural machinery and implements, to more than 100,000,000 kr.