Finnish Farms Research Articles

Agrarian world market and Finnish farm economy

Abstract The development of agriculture in Finland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — i.e. towards the end of the period of Autonomy, when Finland was an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire — has been the subject of a great deal of attention in economic and social history studies. This transition period has, however, been mainly treated from the point of view of politics and legislation: whether the land ownership reform was necessary, how it was carried out and whether it was successful or not. Thus the social crisis in rural Finland at the turn of the century has been perceived as a result of an unequal distribution of land ownership, as a battle between two rural population groups: those who owned land and those who did not. The students of the era have been especially interested in one layer of the rural population strata, the crofters. These were small leaseholders, tenant farmers who paid their rent mainly in labour.

Exposure of Finnish farm workers to phenoxy acid herbicides.

Exposure to the phenoxy acid herbicides 4-chloro-2-methylphenoxyacetic acid (MCPA), 2-(4-chloro-2-methylphenoxy)propanoic acid (mecoprop), and 2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)propanoic acid (dichlorprop) was evaluated in workers employed on 17 farms by urinalysis of the parent chemicals and their metabolites. The excretion was compared with the percutaneous absorption determined by epicutaneous sampling and with the inhaled dose analyzed by air samples collected at the breathing zone. The percutaneous route of the absorbed dose accounted for 88% of the excretion of the three chemicals. The biological half-life of MCPA was determined at three dose levels. It proved to be dose-dependent and could be resolved in two phases by mathematical simulation. The initial t1/2 varied between 12–30 hr and the second t1/2 36–39 hr. The peak urinary herbicide concentrations were found in most cases 12 hr after the end of the exposure, and they were associated with increased excretion of sodium and potassium ions. This indicates that the kidney ion transport is the only detectable physiological effect at these low levels of exposure and caused by the fact that the kidneys virtually concentrate the agents for their excretion.

Familial aggregation of IgG antibody response to antigens associated with farmer's lung.

The levels of circulating IgG antibodies to Aspergillus umbrosus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Thermoactinomyces vulgaris, and Micropolyspora faeni were determined by enzyme immunoassay in 197 subjects selected for a study of farmer's lung (FL). The material consisted of five study groups: 37 patients with clinically confirmed FL, 31 spouses of the patients, 44 immediate relatives of the patients, 35 immediate relatives of the patients' spouses, and 50 unrelated people who were spouses of the 79 people in both relative groups. The mean titres of IgG antibodies to all four microbes were highest in patients with clinically established FL. In the other groups the mean titre of Aspergillus umbrosus, a mould found much more frequently in Finnish farm environments than other moulds under study, was significantly higher (p less than 0.01) in the relatives of FL patients than in other people. This finding remained irrespective of whether the subjects had suffered from FL symptoms or not or whether they worked or lived on the same farm as the patient or on a different one. The difference in the mean titre was not due to the differences between the study groups in age, sex, smoking habits, atopic background, frequency of handling of plant materials, or time interval from the most recent handling of visibly mouldy hay. The results imply that genetic factors may be important in the IgG antibody response to microbial antigens associated with FL.

Consumption of working time in strawberry production

The results of an empirical study of the working time consumed in strawberry production on Finnish farms are reviewed. Forty growers participated in the study, which took place between 1977—80. The purpose of the study was to determine how much time was consumed in working the fallow ground and during the summer of planting, in the first fruiting year and in the next four or five growth periods. Two cultivation methods were treated separately. The whole strawberry cultivation area was 95,1 ha. In the method in which the earth surrounding the bushes was covered with a black plastic film, the total consumption of working time was 409,0 h/ha using a one-row system and 572,5 h/ha using a double-row system during the fallow period and the summer of planting. During the first fruiting year the figure was 492,5 h/ha and in the next fruiting years 1 348,5 h/ha, including the time spent on harvesting. Where mulch was applied, the corresponding averages were 235,5 h/ha, 612,5 h/ha 1 182,0 h/ha. Factors affecting the variation in the total working time between farms were studied by linear regression analysis. Factors such as e.g. total strawberry cultivation area, the number of plants per hectare and the number of the years the grower had been cultivating strawberries, did not explain the variation in the working time satisfactorily. The yield per hectare, percentage of the different varieties cultivated, planting system, cultivation and picking methods explained only 33 % of the variation in labour output of picking.

The Effect of the Bacteriological Status of Feed on Some Haematological and Blood Chemical Data on Mink

Blood samples from 100 minks from a research farm using bacteriologically high quality feed and from 55 minks from another farm supplying bacteriologically inferior feed, as well as from nine minks from Denmark from two farms providing still better quality feed than both Finnish farms – all minks apparently clinically healthy – were analyzed for some haematological and chemical data: total leucocyte count, haemoglobin, ornithine carba-moyltransferase (OCT), alkaline phosphatase (AP), alanine aminotransferase (ALAT), aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT), γ-glutamyl-transferase (Γ-GT), total bilirubin and creatinine. The Finnish minks supplied with high quality feed had more optimal values of total leucocytes, haemoglobin, OCT, AP and creatinine than minks receiving feed with higher bacterial contamination. The Danish minks had better blood values in the investigated parameters except for lower haemoglobin and total bilirubin, which showed no significant difference.

The early years of modern Finnish agriculture

Abstract Finnish social studies have recently begun to concentrate rather less upon the old traditional agricultural community and to investigate the profound changes in urban and rural society at the turn of the century. In this book, Veikko Anttila has examined agricultural change during this period, but the title is a little deceptive, since it is only concerned with a part of the process of change, viz. the extension and adoption of technical innovations in agriculture. Moreover it deals mainly with innovations in crop cultivation, and since the emphasis in the Finnish farm economy was shifting at that time from crop cultivation to stock-raising and forestry, the work is in fact a specialised study of one aspect of agricultural modernisation in Finland. The few references to innovations in the field of stock-raising tend to interrupt the study rather than contribute to its thesis.

Urbanization and the Patrilineal Transmission of Farms in Finland)

Farm households in Finland and Sweden are an exception to what appears to be a general rule in industrial societies. The general rule is that households containing married couples and parents more often include wives' parents than husbands' parents. This has been found to be true in the U. S., in London, and in Finland and Sweden 1). Finnish and Swedish farmers, on the other hand, more often share the household with husband's parents rather than wife's parents. This is to be expected because of the custom of transmission of farms to sons in these two countries. The custom is for a son to take over the farm, with the understanding that he will provide for the parents in their old age2). This paper reports an investigation of two questions about Finnish farm households in which older parents and married couples live. These questions are:

The Use of Certain Machines on Finnish Farms

The Use of Certain Machines on Finnish Farms

The Use of Certain Machines on Finnish Farms

The Use of Certain Machines on Finnish Farms

Karjanlanta kasvien fosforin lähteenä

Karjanlanta kasvien fosforin lähteenä