query on Swedish farming
john hendrickson (JHENDRIK@macc.wisc.edu)
Wed, 12 Apr 95 14:03 CDT
SANET'ers:
I recently a copy of a rather snazzy publication titled "Swedish
Farming" (no date given) put out by the Swedish Farming
Federation. This booklet describes in rather glowing terms the
environmental and humane aspects of agriculture in Sweden. For
example, the document states that:
-Swedish farmers use only one fourth as much pesticides as
farmers in Britain and Germany and half as much as Danish
farmers,
-"the goal of Swedish farmers and Swedish society at large is to
reduce pesticide use an additional 50% by 1995,"
-nitrogen leaching will be reduced to 1988 levels by the year
2000,
-livestock antibiotics are used sparingly (if at all),
-and Salmonella has largely disappeared from Sweden.
The report also describes the use of bio-fuels, the growing
agricultural tourism industry, the cleanliness and safety of
Swedish foodstuffs, and indicates that farmers own the country's
food processing industries.
The report does not contain a lot of details nor any
documentation. If the above is accurate, it would seem that
there might be some things to learn from Swedish farmers. I am
curious if anyone out there knows anything about agriculture in
Sweden and can help verify this information.
Please direct your responses directly to me. Thank you.
John Hendrickson
Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
University of Wisconsin-Madison
(608) 265-3704
jhendrik@macc.wisc.edu