Farm Deaths in North Karelia

Authors

• A. Salo Mikko
• M. Alho Juha

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23979/fypr.44974

Keywords:

farms, farm size, Eastern Finland, survival

Abstract

This study examined the effect of farm size on the mortality and survival of Eastern
Finnish farms in the late 1990s. Three different dimensions of farm size (i.e. hectares
operated, number of milk cows, and hectares of forest) were compared. Data were
extracted from administrative records and covered all 4,527 active farms in North
Karelia from 1995 to 1998. Results did not support the disappearing middle size
hypothesis presented by Weiss (1999). Farm size distributions were not bimodal.
No empirical evidence was found of a process of polarisation into two centres of
attraction. As a whole, the analysis provides some support for the conclusion that
the size of forest holding as measured by hectares of forest owned by farm does not
have an independent effect on the likelihood of survival. Its contribution depends
on the other variables in the model.