How to tackle landownership challenges in Finnish agriculture: Types of landowners and their views on ownership, land tenure and improvement measures

Abstract

A rapid change in farm structure has increased non-farmer landownership during Finland's EU membership. Farm sizes have grown, and there is a clear need to generally improve the functioning of the land and rental market. These improvements include optimising land division, and promoting the appropriate and efficient use of the cultivated field area with the help of new technologies. In Finland, although farming landowners own a significant proportion of agricultural land, a considerable share is also leased from non-farming landowners. Leased land, however, causes short-sightedness regarding maintaining and improving soil fertility and improving the farming sector in general. This study analyses the main motives and values of Finnish farming and non-farming landowners regarding landownership. It examines how these motives vary among different landowner types, their experiences with land tenure and related challenges, and their thoughts and plans for improving land management. We adopted a mixed methods research design to gather the data. First, we conducted nine landowner interviews and a literature review to prepare for the quantitative survey. Second, survey data from 248 landowners was collected through structured telephone interviews in February 2021. To form the landowner groups, we applied principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA). The results show that agricultural landownership is motivated by different values depending on whether the landowners are from farming or non-farming backgrounds. Through PCA, we identified three components of landowners' motives: 1) livelihood, active farming, and an effective farm structure; 2) continuity, family farming, and ownership; and 3) concerns in developing property structure. Through clustering, these were interpreted as four types of landowners: 1) optimisers of arable land; 2) rational developers; 3) continuity seekers of family farming; and 4) preservers of ownership. In general, as farming seeks economies of scale through larger units, attaining the optimal techno-economic farm size may be challenging in the future due to a lack of arable land for purchase or rental in Finland's typical mixed agriculture-forest landscapes.