Janken Myrdal · 2012
The reviewer praises Agriculture and Forestry in Sweden since 1900: A Cartographic Description (2011), part of the National Atlas of Sweden, and its companion anthology of geographical and historical studies. Organized by the Royal Academy of Forestry and Agriculture in Sweden, the project follows an agricultural atlas produced a century earlier, drawing on a fund that its original donor, Moritz Fraenckel, established for this purpose. The atlas’s 50 chapters use detailed maps and diagrams to cover technology, politics, landscape and industry; the anthology’s 30 articles develop these topics further. The reviewer highlights continuity in cultivated plains, forests and reindeer husbandry, while noting climate-dependent revisions to forest projections and differing estimates of reindeer losses to predators in the two books. The review identifies two major transformations: technological change and growing environmental demands. Postwar agricultural mechanization and scientific techniques reduced farm numbers and raised productivity; forestry’s further technological advance in the 1980s reduced employment and accidents. Environmental changes include attention to forest dead wood, declining fertilizer and pesticide use, expanding organic farming and a tenfold expansion of nature reserves. Increasing second-home ownership illustrates recreational demands on the countryside. The reviewer also argues that reindeer husbandry requires assessment in its cultural and political context.
