Shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), developed at global scale, comprise narrative descriptions and quantifications of future world developments that are intended for climate change scenario analysis. However, their extension to national and regional scales can be challenging. Here, we present SSP narratives co-developed with stakeholders for the agriculture and food sector in Finland. These are derived from intensive discussions at a workshop attended by approximately 39 participants offering a range of sectoral perspectives. Using general background descriptions of the SSPs for Europe, facilitated discussions were held in parallel for each of four SSPs reflecting very different contexts for the development of the sector up to 2050 and beyond. Discussions focused on five themes from the perspectives of consumers, producers and policy-makers, included a joint final session and allowed for post-workshop feedback. Results reflect careful sector-based, national-level interpretations of the global SSPs from which we have constructed consensus narratives. Our results also show important critical remarks and minority viewpoints. Interesting features of the Finnish narratives compared to the global SSP narratives include greater emphasis on environmental quality; significant land abandonment in SSPs with reduced livestock production and increased plant-based diets; continued need for some farm subsidies across all SSPs and opportunities for diversifying domestic production under scenarios of restricted trade. Our results can contribute to the development of more detailed national long-term scenarios for food and agriculture that are both relevant for local stakeholders and researchers as well as being consistent with global scenarios being applied internationally.

Food security under climate change, several sustainability problems, and ambitious climate targets are considered challenges for agriculture and food sectors in many countries. Since agricultural production and its land use produce appr. 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of Finland, reducing agricultural GHG emissions is important for meeting national target of climate neutrality by 2035. Healthier food diets, maintenance of biodiversity, and reduced nutrient leaching from agriculture are also required for a more sustainable food economy. This paper aims to show how agriculture in Finland, traditionally dominated by livestock production, could decrease GHG emissions significantly and simultaneously respond to other sustainability concerns. Our results, based on economic modelling of the agricultural sector, suggest that moderate changes in food diets and land use can reduce GHG emissions of agriculture by more than 40% by 2050 if productivity growth and policy changes support the overall change in the agriculture and food sector. Adaptation to climate change, e.g. more higher crop yields efficient input use, is necessary for productivity growth. Decreased demand for meat and decreased cultivation of feed crops would decrease GHG emissions and free up land for carbon sequestration through afforestation. Whilst healthier food diets imply less livestock and increased imports of protein crops for food, a reasonable volume of livestock production is useful for maintaining food security, grasslands, crop rotations, soil carbon, and biodiversity. We conclude that transition to low carbon and more sustainable agriculture is possible without risking food security at northern latitudes.

The budget for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU, and thus EU agricultural support payments, may be reduced from 2021. In this study we analyse the effects this may have in Finland using an economic model of Finnish agriculture accounting for structural changes in the dairy and beef sectors. Reducing the CAP budget by 20% would affect farm incomes by 20–25% in southern Finland while central and northern parts of the country, which are dependent on national payments coupled to dairy and beef production, would be less affected. Our results show that the milk and beef sectors throughout the country are still dependent on support payments coupled to production due to reduced real prices for agricultural products. Current policy schemes for southern Finland include coupled CAP payments but do not allow national payments. Any cuts in the CAP budget have significantly more negative effects in southern Finland compared to other regions.