English Summary
This study describes the central views of MTK, The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forestry Owners in Finland, on Finnish environmental policy during the period 1980–2000. The empirical material is collected from the magazine Maataloustuottaja (Agricultural Producer) published by MTK since 1928.
The actualization of environmental issues has often been interpreted in terms of the “soft values” that have sprung up in industrialized societies. The new environmental consciousness which has emerged since the end of the 1960s, has led to a revival of environmental activism both globally and locally, as in Finland. This activism was spearheaded by the young and the well-educated. As a consequence of their widely reported activities, other
social groups gradually began to adopt new environmental views and new ways of environmental action. This development has been further re-enforced by concrete local environmental actions.
As for MTK, changes in environmental values and environmental policy can largely be seen as externally imposed, which explains why the organization and its members have had problems reacting to them. Instead of environmental idealism, the reactions of MTK towards these pressures have often been mediated by environmental instrumentalism. It is – to a great extent – a question of a collision between two differing cultures: that of environmental activists and policy-makers and that of agricultural groups. This clash does not, however, indicate that members of MTK do not spontaneously contemplate environmental issues, at least during the period under investigation, from 1980 to 2000.
MTK’s reactions to environmentalism have been twofold. On one hand, new environmental issues and the activation of environmental policy in Finland were seen as creating an economic pressure towards agriculture. In this respect, the attitude of MTK towards environmental policy was defensive and, on occasion, this new policy was regarded as a political agenda of the left. On the other hand, MTK has reacted to environmental problems caused by other parties, including industrial production, traffic, cities and other external regions. Environmental degradation caused by agriculture was contested right to the beginning of the 1990s MTK’s defensive reactions in the 1980s can be viewed against the background of traditional social and political conflicts in Finnish society: the leftist parties vs. the others, the producers vs. the consumers and the country vs. the city or the periphery vs. the center. Further, they also can be seen as expressions of the instrumental interests of MTK. Environmental policy measures have often entailed agricultural adaptation problems that cause costs, impose new restrictions on landownership and country planning and introduce various practical problems, such as changes in agricultural practices. Also the timetable of such changes has been experienced as problematic. MTK’s handling of these practical issues reflect environmental realism: the issues are regarded important as such, but the actual measures to be taken are often seen as costly and difficult to carry through. Thus, environmental issues are regarded from a practical and normative and not from an ideological perspective. To some extent, however, new visions among the agricultural population and members of MTK can be seen today. According to Karl Werner Brand, these new visions can be described as a background for the reorientation of one’s own life and agricultural practices from the point of view of the actual environmental problems. Yet it is hard to find any proactive features in the views and activities of MTK.
In the empirical part of this study, some concrete changes in the environmental attitudes of MTK. These are minor changes caused by external political pressures and changes in society, including changes in consumption habits. Firstly, the general greening of western societies has lead MTK to consider the possibilities of the new “green market”. As a consequence, MTK has begun to emphasize the “purity” of food produced in Finland. In the same vein, its attitude to organic production – as an example of structural ecological modernization – has changed. While organic production was considered to reduce the profitability of agriculture in the early 1980s, by the end of the decade it was viewed as a potential form of specialization. Nevertheless, some writers warned about the potential juxtaposition of organic production and other forms of agriculture. In addition, it was discussed whether the increased demand for organic products would cause a decrease in modernized agriculture. However, it is not until the end of the 1990s that organic production is referred to in Maataloustuottaja when writing about significant developmental options for Finnish agriculture and countryside.
Another change in MTK’s attitudes is that traditional conflicts between agricultural producers and consumers seem to have lost their importance. Up to the late 1980s, food prices and state subventions to agriculture were the stable diet of agricultural debate. After Finland joined the EU in 1995, these disputes ceased to feature in articles ran by Maataloustuottaja. Instead of food prices and state subventions, the discussions centered on the quality of food, and Finnish consumers appear to find the national agriculture trustworthy in this regard. This change in market choices is also utilized in the marketing of Finnish food products. Additionally, new markets for more expensive organic products have opened up among “green consumers”.
Thirdly, the agricultural sector has begun to pay more attention to environmentally friendly lines of production. As on organization, MTK has committed itself to the principles of sustainable production. This has lead to a more serious consideration of the use of fertilizers and pesticides, water pollution caused by agriculture and the ethical treatment of animals. To provide an example of this change, one might mention environmental programs and guides on “advantageous forms of horticulture”. Due to these new programs and guides, every member of MTK knows what the term “environmentally friendly production” refers to.
Fourthly, in contrast to the situation at the beginning of the 1980s, members of MTK are now aware of the environmental harms caused by agriculture. However, ways of solving these environmental problems are still hotly contested. Harmful agricultural emissions are now controlled both nationally and at the level of the EU. MTK has continuously tried to influence national policy such that national norms should not be stricter than those of the EU. This is a point where the views of environmental policy makers and MTK are still rather far from each other. One example of this is the application of the union’s nitrate directive in Finland.
Fifthly, during the period under investigation, MTK has stressed the significance of national and renewable energy sources. This attitude can be interpreted as purely instrumental: the use of national energy sources (peat, waste wood and wood in general) has traditionally constituted an extra source of income for the agricultural population. This interpretation is supported by the fact that Maataloustuottaja regards peat as a renewable source of energy despite its slow renewal rate and its function as a store of carbon dioxide. As for nuclear energy, MTK has not expressed a firm commitment either in favour of or against building new nuclear energy plants in Finland. MTK’s interests – bearing in mind the fact that forestry tends to be intertwined with agriculture – are closely connected to the interests of the forest industry, which is a vocal supporter of nuclear energy. Hence, MTK is acquiesced to building new nuclear plants, if no other energy sources are available for the needs
of the national forest industry.
Having studied changes in the attitudes of MTK, the next question is what has remained constant in the environmental views of the organization? Firstly, the organization has continuously stressed its autonomy as well as that of the agricultural sciences in diagnosing and defining environmental problems in agriculture. Thus, MTK considers itself to be the best practical expert in these matters, along with agricultural and forestry science and farmers.
This is illustrated by the green colour in the flag and banners of the organization that are mentioned, for example, in “the march of the agricultural producers”. One of the central discourses of MTK involves seeing farmers as stewards of the countryside even in issues of conservation. Other people, such as representatives of environmental administration and various movements as well as all city-dwellers, are considered as alienated from agriculture and the countryside, which explains why environmental policies are often viewed as a failure. This attitude, referred to as “stewardship discourse” by environmental sociologists, is reflected in articles carried by Maataloustuottaja up to the present day. Despite its defensive nature, this discourse may offer an unexploited potential for developing the dialogue between MTK and environmentalists.
Secondly, the agricultural policies of MTK and the EU entail a strong commitment, based on peasant ideology, to “family farming” which, despite its elusive definition, is offered as a basic strategy for solving environmental problems in agriculture. The concept of family farming first emerged in discussions on food prices: family farms were used as a central benchmark in negotiations on product prices and agricultural subsidies. The interests of larger scale farming were embedded into this discourse to make them more palatable to the rest of society. The concept of family farming concept has enabled the portrayal of agriculture as a homogenous totality. Ironically, this total view of agriculture has later been criticized by MTK in the context of environmental policy issues. However, family farming has attracted new attention in recent discussions about the quality of food and the locality of agricultural production and consumption. In principle, local production and consumption of food is regarded as an environmentally positive aspect; the idea being that small farms make it easier to monitor agricultural practices and the treatment of farm animals.
Although these are central concerns in sustainable agriculture, they do not always constitute a sufficient or a necessary condition for environmentally friendly agriculture. This is attested by the fact that the recent outbreak of food-and mouth disease in European cattle has sometimes been accrued to the rise of large-scale farming. This is not the case, however.
On the contrary, the disease has not been detected in Finland since the 1950s, the heyday of small farms.
The scale of agricultural production as indicated by the amount of average arable land per farm has continually expanded in Finland, especially after the country joined the EU, where arable land and the number of livestock is used as a basis for the payment of subventions. Since then, even the amount of rented land has increased in Finland, although renting has been rather an exceptional practice after the 1920s. Significantly, also the number of cattle per farm has increased.
Thirdly, the ideology of family farming is nowadays part of criticism raised against more extensive forms of farming. It is commonly acknowledged that, in terms of the environment, extensive farming with the application of gene technology and the use of antibiotics and hormones (accepted neither in Finland nor in the EU) in beef and milk production and the extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides in horticulture, is often a risky business. MTK’s attitude to the enlargement and intensification of agriculture is contradictory. On one hand, it speaks up for the traditional family and small farm ideology. On the other hand, large-scale farming is seen as a necessary element in a more economically effective and internationally competitive production.
Fourthly, the thrust on ”pure” and ”less-polluted” nationally produced food stuffs has been strong in Finland. This discourse, capitalized in the marketing of Finnish food, is apparently based on alarming news about the application of gene technology, antibiotics and hormones and new epidemics like BSE. Although based largely on faith, the discourse
has gradually brought more attention to the quality of food. However, this marketing strategy is not without risks, since the outbreak of a serious disease might endanger the prevailing conception of the purity of Finnish food.
Fifthly, MTK has continually relied on the conception that the Finnish environmental policy is led by certain political groupings, earlier by the socialists and recently also by the greens. Also the urban cadres of all parties, including the Finnish Center Party and the National Coalition Party, who have traditionally had close ties with MTK, are criticized as conformers. MTK has tended to view itself, agriculture and the countryside as targets of a political witch-hunt by the parties or the fractions mentioned above. MTK feels that environmental policies are targeted almost exclusively at agriculture and the countryside, since the regulation of industrial emissions and the management of wastewaters produced by population centers is politically more difficult to implement. The integration of agricultural and environmental policy is seen as necessary. Perhaps the representatives of the countryside should be heard more receptively in the development of environmental policies. In certain cases, the traditional “control and monitor” type of policy should be desisted and more collaborative form of “post-ecologist” policy and planning should be adopted.
Examples of the “control and monitor” policy include the shore conservation and Natura 2000 programme. There were problems, for example, in the execution of these programmes.
The obligatory public hearings in the shore conservation programme were arranged in August when farmers were busy with harvesting. Besides, MTK ascertained, the social assessment of Natura 2000 programme was inadequately implemented. The hearings were insufficiently prepared, the maps used were vague and the justifications for the conservation of certain areas were insufficient. Moreover, the hearings were accused of being superficial and mistimed, as they were carried out in the spring when farmers were sowing their seeds and filling out their application forms for EU subsidies. These incidents can, of course, be accidental rather than purposeful. If accidental, however, they bear witness to a lack of knowledge of agricultural conventions. If the decision-makers aimed at paying genuine attention to the interests of the people who live in the countryside and tried to find out what they thought about the programmes, their intensions failed.
The points above are closely connected to the other discourses of MTK: the dichotomy between town and country, the estrangement of environmental administration from agricultural practices and the idea of “forced” conservation and “countryside as an outdoor museum”. All of these frictions are connected to a lack of dialogue between MTK and environmental administration. MTK has traditionally resented outside interference in agricultural issues, especially since the foundation of the Finnish Ministry of the Environment. On the other hand, environmental administrators have perhaps had an insufficient knowledge of agricultural practices and the problems of the countryside. There might also be a question of seeing all agricultural issues in terms of “the agro-industrial complex” which has traditionally had a rather hegemonic position in Finnish politics – even in the environmental politics of the past few decades. This can be interpreted as a power contest between the two blocs: MTK in one corner and the environmentalists and their allies in the other. This interpretation is supported by MTK’s view of environmental policy as part of power politics.