AGRICULTURE AND THE PROBLEMS OF THE ARCTIC CLIMATE

Failures of crops

Snow normally melts away in the end of April In Lohja region. After that there is about a four months’ time to cultivate the fields. In September the growing season is over. The first snow comes normally in November. A good example of the demanding conditions in Finland are the temperatures. In the year 1999 they varied from about

-30c in the winter to +30c in the summer in Lohja.

December. Lake Lohja behind and fields and apple trees in front are covered with ice and snow.

Crop failures repeated with uneven intervals belonged to the normal picture of the life in the early rural community. Most failures of crops don’t seem to be quite as fatal in Lohja as in most other parts of Finland. Bad weather conditions during one or two years were however enough to cause two or even three bad years because there wasn’t enough seed grain for all the fields next summer. Even the least changes in the weather were fateful for the peasants’ weakly dried, weakly fertilised fields which had been sown with poor quality seeds.

April. Snow has almost completely melt away from fields, but the lake behind is still under the cover of ice. Note forests that surround the lake and fields. Over 70 % of ground area in Finland is forest. Only about 10% is fields.

People survived local crop failures by eating the cattle and pawning the valuables to buy grain from the luckier villages in the neighbourhood. But if the failure of crop was wider spread people had to go begging and bake bread from bark. It was possible to survive two or three years of crop failure but miserable weather conditions in several successive years, as in the 1690’s, lead to a huge catastrophe. The summer was dry and the frost came early. But the stroke came two years later in 1695. The year 1694 was a poor year and the next year a storm swept over Lohja. The strength of the storm was so mighty that it swept away roofs and trees and hailstones battered windows to pieces.

The year 1696 was the worst of all and the four successive years of crop failure caused such high mortality rates during a short period of time that there is nothing like it in our later history. In the early autumn 1696 crowds of beggars coming from the north brought along a serious disease, probably typhoid, which started to kill people who were weakened by hunger and malnutrition. Mortality rates were record-breaking till the summer 1698. The years 1695 - 1702 decreased the population about 30 %.

In the 19th century the water level of lake Lohja was lowered almost two meters by widening the rapids in Mustio to get more land for cultivation. The former lake bottom was very fertile and it was easy to change into fields because it was quite flat and there was no trees. In this photograph the old shore is on the left and the present shore and lake is on the right behind path and trees.

Many wars that rolled over Finland and Lohja had similar effect with bad weather conditions. They also caused crop failures, famines, spreading diseases and high mortality rates. The worst this kind of disaster was Russian occupation in 1713-1721.

Finland suffered the last large-scale peace time famine in Europe in 1867-1868. After several successive crop failures the year 1867 was the final cause for famine. The summer 1867 was short, rainy and cold. People had to leave their homes and start travelling and begging around the country. Like before, crowds of travelling hungry beggars spread serious diseases, which killed nearly 20% of population in Finland. In Lohja region mortality rates during this last hunger catastrophe were little higher than elsewhere.