Cultivation area of special plants widens

The area of cultivation of certain special plants increased significantly in the country last year, said a press release issued by the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) on Tuesday.

“The broad bean area increased the most, i.e. 34 per cent. Currently, the broad bean area equals the cultivation area of potato, being 22,000 hectares,” said Anneli Partala, senior statistician at the Luke.

In addition, the oilseed rape area of 37,000 hectares increased substantially, i.e. 17 per cent. The cultivation area of oilseed rape was already much higher than that of turnip rape, which was 28,500 hectares. Furthermore, the cultivation area of caraway of 24,000 hectares has increased for the past four years.

The total agricultural area was 2,272,200 hectares in Finland in 2017. The largest agricultural area of nearly 300,000 hectares was in the southwest Finland region, while the smallest agricultural area of less than 20,000 hectares was in the Åland.

Of the Finnish municipalities, the largest agricultural area of roughly 55,000 hectares was in Salo.

The proportion of the cultivation area of cereals to the utilised agricultural area remained high, roughly 47 per cent or 1,071,000 hectares. The cultivation area of cereals decreased three per cent from 2016, i.e. the same percentage as in the previous year.

“In practice, this decrease resulted from the cultivation area of barley being one-tenth smaller, whereas the cultivation areas of winter wheat, rye and oats increased. The average cultivation area of cereal farms was 30 hectares,” said Partala.

The feed grass made up nearly one-third of the total area, i.e., roughly 717,000 hectares. The feed grass area, i.e., mainly the silage fodder area, increased by approximately 30,000 hectares year on year. The average feed grass area on feed grass farms was 21 hectares.