• Farmland scarce in Denmark’s isle kingdom
By JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
Can you imagine a nation
spreading over 400 islands’
The Kingdom of Denmark
does just that, and includes a
peninsula of Northern
Europe and the large island
of Greenland, off the North*
American coast.
Denmark’s cohabitation
with the sea has taught its
Viking descendants to ap
preciate land and carefully
cultivate every inch, even to
the extent of growing gar
dens instead of grass in
yards. It’s a country grown
famous for its beautiful
chinas and porcelains, the
product of an inventive
people who lacked raw
mineral wealth but made use
of an abundance of clay well
suited for the potter’s wheel
The Danish government
operates as a fairly well
developed welfare state.
When this reporter visited
during July 1976, an average
industrial worker was
earning $8 hourly, then
paying about 60 per cent of
his wages back to the
government. That whopping
deduction funded a variety
of social services, excellent
and cheap public tran
sportation, old-age benefits,
clean streets, and mam
tamed a low rate of crime.
Petroleum at the pump
cost $1.60 per gallon, ac
counting for the abundance
of small compact cars and
“parking lots” filled with
bikes at every street corner.
Fuel used for farming
purposes, however, was sold
at about half that cost.
Credit is a relatively new
introduction to the Danish
consumer, with- 1976 mor
tgage interest rates running
14 to 15 per cent. Travel
remained an inexpensive
recreation, but some
luxuries, including
automobiles, were heavily
taxed.
Eight per cent of the
population of Denmark was
engaged in agriculture, and
farm products made up a full
one-third of the country’s
exports. Almost half of the
Individually tied in these mini-stalls, Danish Landrace sows are housed much
like a herd of cattle.
cropland is planted in
barley. Other popular small
grams are wheat, oats and
rapeseed, from which tiny
black seeds, resembling
cabbage seeds, are pressed
into oils for cooking and fine
grade motor use.
Danish farmers were
seeking some type of relief
from high inheritance taxes
on their lands and cheaper
loans for agriculture use.
Schools showed no real in
centives to encourage far
ming by offering vo-ag
courses in high school, but
many younger farmers were
more educated than their
fathers had been. We were
told of statistics showing
that when a son took over his
father’s farming operation,
there was usually an 80 per
cent increase in the unit’s
production.
Mr. and Mrs. Holger
Anderson, the first family
visited while “lifeseeing” in
Denmark, were dairy far
mers. Their very old but
beautifully remodeled
farmhouse attached at an
angle to a haystorage area,
which also attached at an
angle to the “cowhouse,”
forming a giant “U” shape
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 4,1978
surrounding a cozy cob
blestoned courtyard.
A herd of 40 cows filled the
stanchion barn, a mixture of
the small Red Danish breed
and more recently added
Black Whites, the smaller
built European strain of
Holstein-Friesians. Sixty
additional claves, heifers
and a few young bulls were
raised on the 55 owned and 25
rented acres of land.
On a feeding program of
sugar beets, hay, pasture.
pelleted concentrate and
brewers’ mash, Anderson
was averaging 11,200 pounds
per animal. A loose housing
addition to the bam was
under construction, where
brewers’ mash would be
available free choice to the
cows. Milk was picked up
daily and farmers were
receiving a return of about
95 cents per gallon.
As the world’s largest
exporter of pork products,
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