Lännentila

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General information of the farm

"Lännen Tila" i.e. "Western farm" is located in Lumijoki, Ylipää and it is an agricultural farm that is specialised in growing potatoes. The company was founded in 1978 when the Karjula family rented the whole area with its buildings, which covers about 120 hectares of land. On 70% of the fields they grow potatoes and on 30% crop (barley and oat).

Family Karjula and a part of the project-group

Economical function of the farm

The form of the company and its ownership is a family enterprise. There are three employees working on this farm. The business idea is renting the fields to two other farmers, growing potatoes and crop and net marketing the products directly to other big stores in the south of Finland and also to Russia and Sweden. Therefore international and also national contacts have been established. One local person is responsible for the selling of the potatoes in the area of Oulu and Raahe. In summer and autumn the farm can employ young people for work.

The farm developed from a cow and corn growing farm to a potato and crop farm 20 years ago. They have developed their own system to cultivate early potatoes: first they put the seed potatoes into little boxes and let them grow in a hall, until it´s warm enough to plant them in the ground. When potatoes are big enough to eat, they hoe potatoes up; in that way potatoes don´t damage.

The potato storage

The farmer´s work

The ordinary work of a farmer is very hard and doesn't include a lot of free time. To become a farmer you have to go to a College of Agriculture and/or have a lot of experience from the family where you grew up. Even if the farmer has to do a lot of work, the salary isn´t good.

Changes made by the European Union

The European Union has influenced the farmer to do more paperwork, because the EU needs all the information included: for example what is cultivated, how large an area and where. Also the number of supervisions, like area controls and controls made from an airplane, have increased. The price of potatoes has gone down and also the farmer´s salary has decreased by about 20%. The farm gets agricultural support from the European Union.

Interviewing the farmer	Machine that picks up the potatoes

The farmer´s wishes

The farmer would like to have more co-operation with pupils and the school, and he hopes that schools will become more interested in common marketing projects. Mr. Karjula also hopes that Finland´s administration will be the most streamlined in the EU.

The future

The farmer thinks that in agriculture the big changes have already happened, and that future means adaptation. The farm is going to keep the same form in the future too.

© Limingan lukio 1998