Open AccessEvaluating adaptation and the production development of Finnish agriculture in climate and global change
Author(s) -
Heikki Lehtonen
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
agricultural and food science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.347
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1795-1895
pISSN - 1459-6067
DOI - 10.23986/afsci.51080
Subject(s) - agriculture , production (economics) , agricultural economics , livestock , commodity , economics , climate change , natural resource economics , agricultural productivity , crop , farm income , agricultural land , business , environmental science , agricultural science , agronomy , geography , market economy , ecology , archaeology , biology , forestry , macroeconomics
Agricultural product prices and policies influence the development of crop yields under climate change through farm level management decisions. On this basis, five main scenarios were specified for agricultural commodity prices and crop yields. An economic agricultural sector model was used in order to assess the impacts of the scenarios on production, land use and farm income in Finland. The results suggest that falling crop yields, if realized due to low prices and restrictive policies, will result in decreasing crop and livestock production and increasing nutrient surplus. Slowly increasing crop yields could stabilise production and increase farm income. Significantly higher crop prices and yields are required, however, for any marked increase in production in Finland. Cereals production would increase relatively more than livestock production, if there were high prices for agricultural products. This is explained by abundant land resources, a high opportunity cost of labour and policies maintaining current dairy and beef production.