Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1940, Page 113

THE PRESENT FOOD SUPPLY IN FINLAND 107
145,000 hectares in 193B, which represents about 13 per cent.
of the total area under hay in Finland. As the yield of hay per
hectare in the ceded territory has approximated the average for
the whole country, the loss in regard to the national hay crop
can also be estimated at 13 per cent. The yield from the natural
meadows has not been of much importance. A great part of the
cattle which transformed the fodder crop in the ceded territory
into milk and meat was succesfully evacuated from the ceded
areas, but some part had to be slaughtered in connection with
the evacuation and others at their destinations because of a lack
of foader or because of foot and mouth disease, which was rather
common among the evacuated cattle. By now hardly a third of
the stock of cattle in the ceded territory still survives.
Potatoes were grown in the ceded areas, especially in the
Karelian Isthmus, on a larger scale than usual in Finland. The
areas under potatoes lost to Finland comprised 11,000 hectares
or about 12 per cent. of the total area under potatoes. The yield
of potatoes per hectare was about the same as elsewhere in Fin-
land, so that the ensuing reduction in the potato harvest is simi-
larly about 12 per cent.
Of Finland’s two raw sugar factories, one was in the ceded
territory. It produced about 30 per cent. of the total Finnish
output of raw sugar, which has been as low as 12—15 million
kgs and has satisfied only about 15 per cent. of the national
consumption of sugar. Other field crops grown in the ceded
territory have not been of any special importance in the national
production of foods.
To sum up, it may be said that the loss of territory denotes
a reduction of 10—12 per cent. in Finland’s food production
and a corresponding decline in the degree of self-sufficiency,
assuming that both production and consumption retain the same
structure as in recent years.
What possibilities has Finland of making up for the loss, and
how soon could one expect Finland to re-achieve the rate of
production and the degree of self-sufficiency in regard to food
production maintained during the past few years?
The loss can be made up for in three ways, viz., by breaking
in new arable land, by increasing the intensity of agricultural
production and by altering the structure of production and con-
sumption.
There is still plenty of land suited to cultivation in Finland,