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THE HISTORY OF FINSTAD GÅRD

Finstad Gård in the year 1936

  Finstad Gård (Finstad Farm) was bought by Ivar Pedersen Svendsøy in 1932.

At that time there were no houses on the farm until the main building was created in 1933/34

followed by the barn in 1935.

   

From the left: Marta, Lill, Per Kristian and Ivar (1935)

Due to the moist soil a ditching system was most needed. To mitigate the problem a draiange system consisting of a total of 60 000  pipes equivalent of 20 km were put in place, all by hand.

 The farm was multifarious with an intensive production of livestock as well as vegetables, fruit and berries as was usual at the time.

After having finished their education at Gjennestad Gartnerskole (Gjennestad Horticultural School) in 1955 Per and Liv Svendsøy returned to Finstad.     

Liv & Per 'fresh' from agricultural school. Picture taken in 1955

Ivar handed the operational responsibility over to Per once he returned and he got married to Liv the following year.

With a new family to accomodate on the farm an additional house was built for the young ones in which they lived until a swap with Ivar and Martha was performed in 1961.

 With Per as the operational manager the livestock was sold and the farming focused on cultivation of vegetables.

Following the change in farmhold the cowshed was rebuilt into a cold storage and Per started selling his own vegetables on the market place in Oslo.

The intensive work and the growth in sales for other farmers in the area once more presented the need for increased storage capacity. As a result a new storehouse consisting of three cold storages, workroom and three bedsits was finalised in 1972.

 The farm was handed over to Toril and Erik Rosnes in 1983. Per, turning 49 at the time and still full of energy was reluctant to retire. Thus he separated the increasingly succesful wholesale activities from the farm and built another storehouse with an integrated apartment for Liv and himself.  

Toril and Erik maintained production as it were until 1985 when they decided to further specialise the farming by consentrating on cultivation of chinese cabbage, head cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.   

An opportunity to aquire 12,5 acres of additional land from the neighbouring farm Revå emerged in 1985, increasing the size of the farm till 54 acres. The outdoor production was further simplified the same year by removing all remaining sorts of vegetables but chinese cabbage and procurement of a semi automatic packeting machine.   

Harvest of chinese cabbage.  An efficient system which simplified the harvesting .

 

The cultivation of chinese cabbage came to a complete stop in 1987 and all of the production gear were sold. Aiming for a biodynamic production philosophy 2,5 acres of green aspargus and 12,5 acres of potatoes were to take its place in addition to the purchase of 10 Hereford cows. Due to years of intensive cultivation of vegetables the soil was in perfect condition resulting in years with plentiful harvests. An application for approval of the biodynamic production were sent to the authorities the same year. 

The farm got the approval the following year with cultivation of potatoes as the main product. The live stock of Hereford grew  steadily and reached a maximum of 60 animals. 

In 1989 the biodynamic production consisted of 3 acres of onion, 5 acres of head cabbage, 4 acres of beetroot, 7,5 acres of potatoes and a pilot area of  celery in addition to grassland for production of fodder.

Finstad Gård in the year 1999