The key is farmer autonomy

This blog post was originally published in MMM's Debate on the Food System blog series on November 12, 2025.

There are many ways to support a farmer-led transformation of the food system. Advice should be developed to better support farmer decision-making and the specific circumstances of each farm. The shared data economy of the food chain should be based on basic data that farmers themselves use to manage and develop their farms – and not the other way around. Similarly, the reform of agricultural and support policies should strengthen local, farm-specific decision-making. Agricultural financing and product and value chain innovations should also be based on ideas that allow farmers to better define their production methods, risks and required margins.

The editorial in Maaseudun Tulevaisuuden on 31 October 2025 can be seen as a domestic turning point in the food system. A common gaze is turning to the change that pioneers of organic and regenerative farming and agroecological research have been talking about for a long time. It won't be many generations before our current food system, which is input-intensive, ecologically short-sighted and limits the independence of farmers, is viewed as an aberration in history. To quote a financial expert, farmers have long been "swinging at the end of a long capital stick".

As Jenni Ylikahri aptly wrote in her blog , understanding of living soil and nutrient cycles is increasing rapidly. Taina Nilsson, on the other hand, described a future for rural areas in her blog, with skilled and prosperous producers at its core. The challenge is that the current food system is the normal state for us, no matter how much farmers and waterways suffer. We have lived in an era of fossil fuel economy, urbanization and the growth of the welfare state, and the way we produce food is a mirror of this era. Capital, expertise, structures and consumer habits are tied to it. Now, a multi-level crisis is forcing the entire system to renew itself.

The farmer takes care of the land, the community supports the farmer

What will the food system look like? It would be honest to say that I don't know. There are only scenarios and visions. Holistic farm management, more local nutrient cycles, and living soil and diversity as production inputs are guaranteed to be part of the future. Sustainable farming is always achieved by supporting natural mechanisms, whether in organic, regenerative farming, or other names.

In the agroecological future, change is just beginning. In the future, more and more farms will embark on the path of organic or regenerative farming, or continue on it. Value chains and actors that support farmers on the path will succeed. Old structures are holding back.

Farmers often remind us that these things were known before. ProAgria's Harri Mäkivuokko also perceptively noted in his blog how "valuing the maintenance of soil quality and the principles of the circular economy are everyday life for professional Finnish farmers, if only for cost reasons." On the other hand, if these principles were followed in Finnish fields, nutrient runoff into waterways, soil depletion and compaction would not be everyday life. There is still work and learning to be done.

Research Director Tuomas Kuhmonen, on the other hand, already raised a scenario in 2018 in which the system splits in two: some food chains focus on exports, volume and a price-driven market. The other part focuses on interaction-driven and local value chains, such as partnership farming and other short food chain solutions. Could consciously supporting the split be a smart strategic choice?

Decisions and innovations must support farmer autonomy

The key to success in all scenarios is to increase farmer autonomy: self-confidence, know-how, control of one's own production inputs, and the ability to make decisions that develop the space holistically and implement them in a controlled manner. The younger generation of farmers is attracted to agroecological and innovative methods and the building of more local markets for precisely this reason: more local nutrient cycles and markets promise autonomy. Of course, this also requires farmers to take responsibility and take an independent approach, which is of course natural to most of them.

There are many ways to support a farmer-led transformation of the food system. Advice should be developed to better support farmer decision-making and the specific circumstances of each farm. The shared data economy of the food chain should be based on basic data that farmers themselves use to manage and develop their farms – and not the other way around. Similarly, the reform of agricultural and support policies should strengthen local, farm-specific decision-making. Agricultural financing and product and value chain innovations should also be based on ideas that allow farmers to better define their production methods, risks and required margins.

By supporting farmer autonomy in different parts of the food system, the best factors can be found, both for primary production in export-oriented value chains and for the thousands of new farmers who want to build a more local food culture for ecologically conscious city dwellers. Rural Finland has no shortage of empty and underutilized farm complexes for agroecological development work.

Antti Luomala