The results of the study were recently published in the journal Regional Environmental Change.
Over the past two decades, changes in the world economy, policies and trade have been large and unpredictable. Climate change is already affecting the agricultural sector in Finland, and temperatures are predicted to rise faster than the global average. In order to illustrate the kinds of changes in operational circumstances that Finnish agriculture may have to face in the future, four different national scenarios have been developed that are consistent with a set of existing global pathways.
Development paths illustrate possible futures
Specifying the wide-ranging pathways of change required close co-operation with key actors and stakeholders in the agri-food sector. The stakeholders were invited to a workshop to discuss how the sector might meet the challenges posed by different global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Four development paths, each one depicting a variety of conditions for the agriculture and food industry in Finland up to 2050 and beyond, were constructed from the results of the stakeholder discussions.
The paths describing alternative developments of Finnish agriculture in different global change scenarios are as follows:
- Sustainability – Taking the Green Road
- Regional Rivalry – Rocky Road
- Inequality – A Road Divided
- Development with fossil energy – Taking the Highway
The paths are based on global SSPs, which are used worldwide in climate change research and assessments, including by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The pathways created in this exercise are potentially valuable for natural resource research in Finland as well.
Finnish pathways are consistent with changes in Europe
The following examples illustrate the types of issues specific to Finland that emerged from the stakeholder discussions:
- The state of the environment, although deteriorating under some pathways, would remain more valued in Finland than in most other parts of the world.
- Agricultural subsidies will continue to be necessary in Finland under all pathways, but their volume is likely to decrease.
- Pathways that anticipate restrictions on world trade provide an opportunity to diversify domestic production
- Pathways assuming reduced livestock production and increased plant-based diets would lead to a significant reduction of cultivated land in Finland
“These future scenarios offer opportunities to study climate change and various future developments in Finnish agriculture", says research professor Heikki Lehtonen from Luke, who was first author of the article. Lehtonen also finds it promising that the development narratives developed for Finland are consistent with the corresponding ones built for the entire European agricultural sector, published in a recent article in Global Environmental Change, where Lehtonen was a co-author.
The Finnish narratives were built as part of a broader national scenario development study, PLUMES, coordinated by research professor Timothy Carter from SYKE, a co-author of the article. Carter also contributed to a recent review of the global SSP narratives used in this study that was published in Nature Climate Change. The PLUMES project was funded by the Academy of Finland.
More information
- Research professor Heikki Lehtonen, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), firstname.lastname@luke.fi, Tel. +359 29 532 6316
- Research professor Timothy Carter, Finnish Environment Institute SYKE, firstname.lastname@syke.fi, Tel. +358 95 251094
- Summary of work: Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) (PDF)
Read more
- Article in Global Environmental Change: Shared socio-economic pathways for European agriculture and food systems: the Eur-Agri-SSPs. Mitter H, et al. (2020)
- Article in Nature Climate Change: Achievements and needs for the climate change scenario framework. O’Neill, et al. (2020)
- Article in Regional Environmental Change: Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture. Lehtonen, H.S., Aakkula, J., Fronzek, T., Helin, J., Hilden, M., Huttunen, S., Kaljonen, M., Niemi, J., Palosuo, T., Pirttioja, N., Rikkonen, P. & Varho, V., Carter, T.R. 2021
- The PLUMES project
- SYKE News: Scientists assess framework for depicting different futures under changing climate