56 per cent of farms had fertilizer plans in 1997

In 1997, 44,500 Norwegian farms had fertilizer plans based on soil sampling. This comprises 56 per cent of all farms with at least five decares (one decare=0.2471 acres) of farmland in production. In 1990 only 25 per cent of Norway's farms had drawn up a fertilizer plan.

The fertilizer plans drawn up cover around 6.3 million decares, or 62 per cent of Norway's total farmland. This is an increase of over 1 million decares from the year before. How much of the total area in cultivation is covered by the plans varies from one county to the next.

As in 1996, Nord-Trøndelag and Nordland municipalities have the highest coverage rates, with 69-70 per cent, while Vestfold, with 47 per cent, and Hordaland, with 52 per cent, have the lowest. Coverage rates are far higher for large farms. The plans cover 29 per cent of the farmland in production on farms with less than 50 decares of under cultivation and 73 per cent of the farmland on farms with at least 500 decares of productive agricultural land.

New Statistics

Annual sample survey of agriculture. Tillage and fertilizing, 1996/1997.
Statistics are published every year in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics, Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Agricultural Statistics and in a report on the implementation of measures to reduce pollution in agriculture scheduled for release in April this year. More information: Berit Bjørlo, tel. +47 62 88 55 07, e-mail: bbj@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 4, 1998