Biförtjänsternas storlek och struktur på bokföringsgårdarna i Finland

Authors

• Patrick Hackman Lantbruksekonomiska inrättningen vid Helsingfors universitet

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23986/afsci.71626

Abstract

The evolution towards greater labour productivity in agricultural production seems to become more and more rapid, while increasing amounts of capital is being invested per labour hour in the process. In Finland, where the farms are remarkably small, these trends have caused an increasing interest in part-time farming, its problems and possibilities. The main purpose of this work has thus been to present some figures illustrating the significance and kinds of off-farm income sources on Finnish bokkeeping farms. All the figures used in the study have been obtained from farms involved in the state planned scheme named »investigations on the profitableness of agriculture in Finland». The amount of farms taking part in this bokkeeping work has, during the time studied, been about one thousand. The relative amount of off-farm cash receipts (in %) has been chosen as criterion of off-farm income significance in total income. The use of a systematic grouping has made it possible to illustrate the structure of off-farm income sources and the changes in structure that have occurred between the fiscal years 1950/51 and 1960/61 (see Tables 1 and 2). The percentages in Table 1. show no definite trends towards a change in the off-farm income significance. It should be kept in mind that the proportion of marketable commodities during the period studied, has increased markedly (from about 84 % in 1950/51 to about 90 % in 1960/61) for the whole undertaking, while off-farm undertakings show almost no signs of natural economy during this period. Table 2 shows that there has been a great structural change in the sources of off-farm income between the business years 1950/51 and 1960/61. Sources comprising greater amounts of labour and also some social benefits have increased, while more capital sources have decreased in significance. The results achieved cannot under any circumstances be generalized. In the first place because the bookkeeping farms give a more or less biased picture of the Finnish farmer (3). Secondly, the factors studied above show great variance from case to case. In order to get reliable information on the situation today and the possibilities of tomorrow, the matter of off-farm income should be studied on larger scale on more representative farms.