Siementuotantomme kehityksestä tuonnin ja viennin valossa

Authors

• Liisa Mali

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23986/afsci.71257

Abstract

In the beginning of the 19th century Finland may have been able to meet its own demand for seeds as rye, barley, oats, meadow foxtail etc. were exported even at that time. The production of seeds was not, however, capable of following the rapid development of plant production for which reason the demand for imported seeds increased during the latter part of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century. Attempts were made to augment the production of seeds in the 1910’s and about 1920. At this time a great interest in seed cultivation was observable. After the first World War it was, however, checked by the supply of cheaper foreign seeds. In the 1920’s and the 1930’s the amount of imports grew on the part of the majority of seed kinds (Table 1). During the present decade our dependence on foreign seeds has constantly increased (Table 2). From the plant production standpoint the development in this direction is exceedingly deplorable as the imported seeds, owing to their origin, seldom meet the requirements set upon the domestic ones. Finland is able to produce most of the different kinds of seeds and also to export them which fact has been proved by the considerable export of meadow foxtail and timothy seed in the 1940’s (Table 3). For this reason serious attention must be paid to the seed problem when planning the future plant production, and the cultivation of seeds must be developed as far as possible to meet the demand of our own plant production.