Bioenergy decision-making of farms in Northern Finland: Combining the bottom-up and top-down perspectives

Abstract

Finnish farmers' role as energy producers is small compared to their role as energy resource owners. Since climate and energy policy in Finland continues favoring large-scale energy visions, additional investment support for agriculture will stay modest. To utilize fully the energy potential in farms, we analyze the farmers' decision-making environment. First, we present an overview of the Finnish energy policy and economy and their effect on farms (the top-down perspective). Then we analyze the drivers behind the bioenergy decisions of farms in general and in the Oulu region, located in Northern Finland (the bottom-up perspective). There is weak policy coherence between national and regional energy efforts. Strong pressure is placed on farmers to improve their business and marketing knowledge, innovation and financial abilities, education level, and networking skills. In the Oulu region, bioenergy forerunners can be divided in three different groups - investors, entrepreneurs and hobbyists - that have different levels of commitment to their energy businesses. This further stresses the importance of getting quality business services from numerous service providers.Agriculture Bioenergy Finland

Similar works

Full text

thumbnail-image

Research Papers in Economics

redirect
Last time updated on 06/07/2012

This paper was published in Research Papers in Economics.

Having an issue?

Is data on this page outdated, violates copyrights or anything else? Report the problem now and we will take corresponding actions after reviewing your request.