A third of the cultivated area was fertilised with manure in 2020
The 2020 agricultural survey collected information on the fertilisation of farmland. Half of the cultivated area, approximately one million hectares, was fertilised with artificial fertilisers alone, while a third of the cultivated area was fertilised with manure alone or with the combination of manure and artificial fertilisers.
In 2020, Finland’s cultivated area totalled two million hectares. Of this area, cereals covered a million hectares and grasslands nearly 0.8 million hectares. Other crops made up roughly 0.2 million hectares. In addition to the cultivated area, fallows covered 0.2 million hectares. In 2020, organic farming or farms soon to engage in organic farming accounted for 0.3 million hectares of farmland.
A million hectares of farmland were fertilised with artificial fertilisers alone. Half a million hectares were fertilised with the combination of artificial fertilisers and manure, and 0.2 million hectares were fertilised with manure alone.
“A small number of fields, some 30,000 hectares, is fertilised using other organic or waste-based fertilisers,” says Jaana Kyyrä, senior statistician at the Natura Resources Institute Finland (Luke).
Nearly two thirds of manure are injected or incorporated immediately during spreading or within four hours after spreading
Roughly half of all manure consists of solid manure, with broadcast spreading being its only application method. Broadcast-spread liquid manure (slurry, urine and manure-containing water) accounted for nearly a quarter of all manure, and liquid manure applied using an injector or spreader made up more than a quarter. Manure is usually injected at the depth of less than 10 cm.
Some 80 per cent of all broadcast-spread manure is covered after spreading, while roughly half of slurry, urine and manure-containing water is incorporated. More than half of incorporating takes place within less than four hours after spreading.
The 2020 agricultural survey collected data on farmland management and irrigation
The statistical publication includes data on farmland fertilisation, manure spreading methods and the area of irrigable farmland. The data was collected from nearly 13,000 farms through the statistical questionnaire for the 2020 agricultural survey. The collection of data ended in April 2021. The response rate was nearly 90 per cent.
The agricultural survey forms the basis of five statistics, with the statistics published now being the last. The final results will be published during the first half of this year, and they will also be available by region and production sector.
