The Scientific Agricultural Society of Finland 80 Years the 2nd December, 1989

The Scientific Agricultural Society of Fin-
land was founded the 2nd December, 1909.
At the turn of the century the foundation of
a great number of Finnish scientific societies
can be seen as a part of the prevalent empha-
sis on national self-determination at a time
when the striving for Russification fell strict
on the Autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland.
The events in the course of history have vio-
lently shaken both our country and its people
in 1917, when Finland became an independent
republic and in the following 80 years as well,
and this has been reflected in the activities of
our Society.

The goals of the Society were defined to be
the forwarding of the agricultural research
and contacts with the research workers on
related sciences at home and abroad. The es-
sential part of the activities of the Society has
consisted of six or seven annual meetings with
lectures and the publication of studies.

In 1911 the Society introduced two series of
publications; “Publications of the Scientific
Agricultural Society of Finland” and the
scientific series “Abhandlungen der Agrikul-
turwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaf in Finn-
land.” In 1928 the name of the German se-
ries was changed to “Acta Agralia Fennica”
and English, German, Swedish and Finnish
were the chosen publication languages. The
following year the Society began the regular
publication of the “Journal of the Scientific
Agricultural Society of Finland” in English.
At the beginning of 1973 the two publications
were merged to form one comprehensive se-
ries under the name of the latter, which in
1984 was finally changed to “Journal of the
Agricultural Science in Finland”. The num-
ber of published annual volumes of the Jour-
nal is now 61, each volume consisting of four
to six journals with the edition of 1 000 co-
pies including 392 exchange copies.

At regular intervals negotiations have been
carried on to unite the above mentioned se-
ries with “Annales Agriculturae Fenniae” of
the Agricultural Research Center but so far
they have failed to bring about any settlement.
At the moment discussions are in progress to
concentrate the Nordic agricultural scientific
publication by intensifying the series “Acta
Agricultural Scandinavica” and dividing it
into subseries. The prerequisite may be the
finishing of some national series on the field
in the Nordic countries.

Earlier the Society participated in arrange-
ments of the annual Agricultural Weeks start-
ed in the twenties. Since 1981 it has had the
whole responsibility for the two-day Scientific
Agricultural Seminar in Helsinki. Next March
the 10th seminar will be arranged with the
theme “New Challenges to Agriculture and
Research”.

At the beginning of this year our Society
had 670 members and nine honorary mem-
bers; Pellervo Saarinen and Nils Westermark,
called in 1974, Juhani Paatela, K.U. Pihka-
la, Alpo Reinikainen, Martti Salonen and
Samuli Suomela, in 1979, and Veikko Brum-
mer and Kaarlo Kallela, in 1984. Five honor-
ary members were called at the 80th anniver-
sary meeting; Paavo Kaarlehto, Kalle Maija-
la, Yrjö Pessi, Viljo Puustjärvi and Viljo Ryy-
nänen.

Surveys of the activities of the Scientific
Agricultural Society have been made at the
25th (Acta Fenniae nr 31, 1943) and 60th (J.
Sci. Agric. Soc. Finl. 45; 1—11) anniversaries.
In 1959 the jubilee volume of 407 pages on
the fifty years’ activities was published. In this
issue the research in agricultural sciences in
Finland in the 1970’sand 1980’s is reported.

Eeva Tapio