Modern farmer's fields alternate between pure oats and flowering varieties

Antti kicked off the 2025 harvest season with farm sales, as the fourth-generation farmer signed the deeds for the final part of the generational change. The Kartano family farm operated as a group for 11 growing seasons. This is the third season for the 31-year-old Antti from Isokyrö as a contract farmer for Helsinki Mills. 

– Our neighbour Marko Rintatalo had been growing pure oats for Helsinki Mills for a while. I decided that when I’m going to get down to business, that's what I am interested in. I immediately asked Pekka Kultti, the Grain Purchasing Manager at Helsinki Mills, about my chances of getting involved. When we then invested in a new dryer and silo, Pekka welcomed us.

"You have to have the mental capacity, the will to go forward"

Between 2015 and 2020 Antti studied civil engineering in Rovaniemi and skied competitively, went to his home farm in the spring to do the sowing, camped the summers on his roller skis and returned to South Ostrobothnia, to the banks of the Kyröjoki river for the autumn threshing. In 2020, the development of the farm took center stage, and in 2022, Antti retired his racing skis. Together with his father, Antti ran the farm and planned for the future: finding more land to rent, developing and expanding the business. 

– Ski racing used to be my passion, now it is the work here at the farm. There are similarities between the two: perseverance, planning, ambition, development, periods of growth and competing. I believe that my sporting years will benefit me as a farmer. I know that you must have the mental capacity and the will to go forward. Whatever you do, you do it with all your might, Antti sums up his thoughts.

In the 2025 growing season, Antti will farm just under 170 hectares, of which 50 hectares will be his own land. 75% of the cultivated area is sown with pure oats. The coarse silt and sandy clay fields are planted with gluten-free, flowering rotational crops such as peas, buckwheat and caraway, as well as a wide variety of catch crops.

"It's great to produce Finnish food that is wanted and appreciated."
Antti Kartano

– Sustainable farming has been with us from the beginning and is playing an ever-increasing role. It requires a lot of things and thinking. Just like in sports, you are in this game for the long haul: one season is a short period, you must repeat things. It may also increase your workload, but it also supports the economic aspect. Smartly grown crops benefit the harvest, the environment, and your wallet.

A total of 11 contract farmers of pure oats are involved in Helsinki Mills’ sustainable farming programme. As the third contract period for spring sowing is coming to an end, Antti thanks Helsinki Mills for the good cooperation and personal contacts.

– It's great to produce Finnish food that is wanted and appreciated. To quote a colleague from Ilmajoki, Oats 2.0 farmer Mikko Mäki-Latvala: Helsinki Mills is a partner that is both large and small enough.

– The sustainable farming programme has been created for us. It takes us Finnish farmers and our way of doing things into consideration. The mill is also close by in Vaasa: when the load leaves our farm, the pure oats can reach the shelves of stores as soon as in a couple of weeks," Antti lists the advantages of cooperation.

Preparations for a dry spring were already made in autumn

After Mother's Day, a long cool spell, and northern winds, the sun is shining from a blue sky, and a modern farmer is sitting on the edge of a field with their 2-year-old cairn terrier, Iita. To balance farming, Antti and his wife P aula exercise and walk their dog. On the roads, kilometres are still being accumulated, even though roller skis have been replaced by bicycles.

– It's starting to feel like summer, says Antti happily. – The perennial caraway has turned green as soon as it came out of the snow. We were able to start sowing the peas on 24 April, and the pure oats a few days later. We are already in the final stretch of sowing: buckwheat’s turn comes last when the threat of night frosts has passed.  If there was one thing to hope for now, it would be soft, warm summer rain.

Antti admits that the rain usually comes at the wrong time, and extreme weather events are also a daily occurrence in Isokyrö.  Spring is now dry and rainless. And when it rains, it pours.

– A good, snowy winter with subzero temperatures and frost would be good for the soil. The winter should have lasted until spring. Now the fields began to dry out as early as the turn of March and April. We need to be vigilant to make the most of the spring moisture in our fields.

In the 2025 growing season, the optional measures of the Sustainable Farming Programme include extended vegetation cover on the Kartano's land.  When, instead of plowing, some of the fields were lightly tilled last autumn and some were left unplowed, both the soil and the farmer benefited.

– This is also an area for development and something new I learned. Now that the fields are drying more slowly, the sowing period is longer and calmer. In the past, we always sowed day and night. Perennial caraway and buckwheat sown in dry soil also help to smooth out the busy season, says Antti.

As summer progresses in the pure oats’ fields, it's time for precision fertilisation, repelling wild oats, and weeding out foreign grains. Already in early May, Antti's thoughts are on the 2026 harvest.

– In order to have gluten-free products in the shops in spring 2027, I need to start thinking and planning for the next harvest season. You need to know what you are growing, what you are ordering, how to prepare. There must be both capacity and resources available at the right time.

– I would hope that both consumers and businesses would think more broadly about the importance of modern agriculture. I'm a year-round entrepreneur and I work every day for Finnish food: sowing and threshing are hectic times, but there's a lot of brain work to be done in the dead of winter. Hopefully that work will be seen. And Finns would become more interested in where the food on their table comes from, says Antti Kartano.

You can follow the news of the modern farmer and the Kartano farm throughout the growing season, in real time. Follow Antti's Instagram account: @kartanolle