April, 2020

For most people, a day job and running a farm might be enough, but not for Mikko. In addition to everything else, he also has 8 personal world championship gold medals in biathlon under his belt, along with 8 gold medals in relay, and a total of 29 world championship medals. He also finds time for forestry and hunting, which he does with his Finnish spitz, Jetsu. The duo hunt for grouse, small predators, and elk.

Mikko’s wife Kati (46) and the couple’s children Severi (20) and Henriikka (18) also live on the farm. Mikko and Kati took over the farm from Mikko’s parents.

“When I was a child, my parents farmed the main farm and raised pigs along with crops,” Mikko explains.

“Since I was a small boy, I’ve been interested in the “real work” on the farm, and spent the majority of my free time helping my father in the fields and with the pigs. It was 2002 when the farm passed down to the next generation. As a result, the family moved here to my home farm.

The Hölsös’ farm area currently spans approximately 85 hectares, of which just over 20 hectares is leased. The surface area of the original farm grew when the farm passed to the next generation, as Mikko and Kati also purchased the fields from Kati’s parents’ farm. The Hölsös’ farm is a gluten free crop farm, which means that no crops containing gluten, such as barley, rye or wheat, can be farmed there.

“Our farm specialises in producing gluten free oats, which take up around 60 hectares of farm area. The rest of the fields will be used to grow peas this year, which will replace the oilseed rape that we farmed previously.

The farm is already waiting to find out when spring work can begin. In the next episode, we’ll take a look at spring sowing.