UNECE Seed Meeting Oulu 8.9.2015

Photo: photo archive of Ministry of and Photo:photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 1 9.9.2015 Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Marja Savonmäki The venue of the meeting is Oulu, beautiful city located in the region of Northern Ostrobothnia. Oulu has about 191,000 residents and is the fifth largest city in Finland.

Photo: © Oulun kaupunki Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry 9.9.2015 2 This is Finland: -Population of Finland: 5,479,018 -Two official languages (Finnish and Swedish) -Finland joined the European Union 1995 -Long country extending about 1100 kilometres from south to the north - Finland- a land of four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter -each season is different in Finland! - Contrast between summer and winter is huge

9.9.2015 3 White summer nights: - Because of the northern location there is daylight in summertime around the clock across the whole Finland

Photo : photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

9.9.2015 4 - Lapland, north of the Arctic Circle, has "nightless nights" in the middle of the summer (starts end of May and continues to mid-July)

Winter: -In the middle of winter daytime is very short. In the south of the country daylight in December lasts only for 6 hours. In northern Lapland a period of darkness prevails at that time, with the sun not rising above the horizon at all

9.9.2015 5 -During January and February there is almost always snow in northern and eastern Finland (there can be even up to one metre of snow in northern Finland)

Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

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-Finland is the most forested country in EU with 71 per cent of the land area covered with forest

Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

9.9.2015 7 -Finland is the most sparsely populated country in the European Union, with only 16 inhabitants per km². -There are exactly 187,888 lakes (larger than 500 m²) and 179,584 islands within the territory of Finland. Both are world records.

9.9.2015 8 Photo: photo archive MMM/Hannu Vallas Agriculture in Finland

Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and 9 Forestry Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

9.9.2015 -Finland is northernmost country in the world with agricultural activities -Most of our plant producing farms are in southern Finland -Animal husbandary is practiced in the central, eastern and northern parts of the country -In the very north, in Lapland,reindeer husbandary is a significant livelihood -In 2014 25 per cent of the

Photo: photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry farms raised livestock 9.9.2015 10 and 69 per cent engaged in plant production -Agriculture is mainly based on family farming and in our country forest is an essential part of farms -In total there are about 56 000 farms in Finland (year 2014) -Average arable area of the farms is about 41 hectares (year 2014) -Main crops grown in Finland include , , and grasses -Potato production area (2014) 22 000 hectares 9.9.2015 11 -Varieties that are suited to our conditions are particularly important for Finland, as they need to be adapted to long summer days and our special climate and soil conditions -Varieties bred for Finnish conditions must be capable of taking full advantage of the short and quite cool growing season with abundant daylight -Even at its longest the growing season in southern Finland is about 170 days and in northernmost Finland the growing season is only about 120 days long 9.9.2015 12

THANK YOU!

Photo:photo archive of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

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