ABSTRACT
Swedish agriculture in the post-World War II period has frequently been characterized by substantial overproduction. An investigation carried out by the 1972 Agricultural Policy Committee for the period 1971-73 found the following levels of self-sufficiency: 195 percent for food grains, 142 percent for butter, 119 percent for pork, 108 percent for feed grains and 103 percent for eggs and veal. 1 These surpluses persisted throughout the 1970s. In the 1980 report of the Long-Term Planning Commission, which assumed that the present goals and instruments of agricultural policy would also continue to be valid in the near future, grain production under normal harvest conditions was estimated to yield a surplus of around 1.3-1.4 million tons per annum, mainly of food grains. This represents a production figure twice that of domestic consumption. 2 A surplus of around 10 percent was estimated for pork.3 More recent figures, for 1982-83, also show a consistent pattern of overproduction, with surpluses of around 20 percent for grains, 13 percent for milk products, 12 percent for beef, 19 percent for pork and 7 percent for eggs.4
