Farmland management and irrigation 2023

Almost 90 per cent of the agricultural land was covered by plant material or was conservation tilled in the winter of 2022-2023, with only just over 10 per cent of the land being bare ploughed land. In 2023, about 11 900 hectares of arable and horticultural land was irrigated. The irrigable area is four times bigger than the irrigated area

•  About half of the area sown in the 2022-2023 crop year was ploughed in autumn or spring.
• Conservation tillage accounted for 40 per cent and sowing in untilled soil made up  one tenth of the total cultivation area.
• Approximately 52 per cent of the utilised agricultural area was covered by crop plants in winter 2022–2023. In all over 85 per cent of the area was covered by plant material or was conservation tilled. Less than 15 per cent of the agricultural area was bare.
• In 2023, approximately 11,900 hectares of the field and horticultural area were irrigated. The irrigable area is four times higher than the irrigated area.
• The largest irrigable area (10 820 hectares) was in Southwest Finland.

• The highest share of irrigable area of the utilised agricultural area was in Åland (16 per cent).
• On farms with outdoor horticultural production, about one fifth of the fields were irrigable
• Around half of the irrigated farms use regulated irrigation, 40% use sprinkler irrigation, 23% use drip irrigation and 14% use surface or spray irrigation or other irrigation methods. Nearly all water used in irrigation is comprised of surface water.
• Nine percent of the utilised agricultural area was grown in monoculture in the years 2022–2023 that is, the same crop was grown in all the three years (other than grassland or multiannual horticultural or fallow crops).