Methods of Maintaining Settled Agriculture in Finnish Lapland

Abstract

The farming methods used to maintain settled agriculture along the northern limits of cultivation in Finnish Lapland have been studied in the village of Peltovuoma. Farming is an integration of reindeer rearing, adapted from traditional Lapp methods, with settled agriculture, based on subsistence dairy production and arable cropping. Maintenance is only made possible by the careful management of a complex system of land uses, precisely located to maximize production from a limited area of reclaimed land of variable quality, within a restrictive climatic environment.