Finnish fur producers fear that fur farming may no longer be profitable

Finnish blue foxes flown to China as stud animals

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Decreased demand and falling prices are causing consternation among fur farmers in Finland. At the first fur auction of the season, held in Vantaa in late December, only 31 per cent of the 126,000 blue fox pelts were sold. The blue fox is one of Finland’s most important domesticated fur bearing animals.
     Expectations are no better for the next big auction, scheduled for March; Russian and Chinese buyers were conspicuously cautious in December.
     
The financial crisis is also being felt in the garment industry, which uses furs as raw material.
     “Many farmers are already having liquidity problems”, says Pirkko Rantanen-Kervinen, managing director of the Finnish Fur Sales Co. Ltd.
     “The average price of a pelt was EUR 51, whereas a couple of years ago, a blue fox brought in more than EUR 100 throughout the year. There hasn’t been a situation like this in 20 years”, says fur farmer Juha Rimpioja, who is getting ready for the next big auction in March.
     At his farm in Kälviä, he produces pelts of blue fox, Finnraccoon, and various colour variations.
     Rimpoja and his father Heikki Rimpioja are processing Finnraccoon pelts for the market. Fur farms do not have a guaranteed income like most agricultural producers; the auctions determine the annual income, and the auction prices are very susceptible to economic fluctuations.
     “We would need money for animal feed for the next season, but the question is, if there is any point in selling at such a low price. A raccoon pelt sold for EUR 40 in December, when the right price should be at least 70", Juha Rimpioja ponders.
     “I think we’ll put some of the pelts into the feed freezer to wait for better times, Heikki Rimipoja says.
     Many others are considering a similar course of action. Rantanen-Kervinen feels that the fur-raising sector would need a fund to balance out fluctuations between lean and fat years. When sales are disappointing, many farmers have to resort to bank loans to make ends meet.
     
Farmer Kalle Palosaari complains that Finnish farmers have undercut their own market.
     “At the beginning of the millennium the Chinese flew 10,000 live blue foxes from Finland to China to serve as stud animals. Many farmers sold because stud animals brought in three times as high a price as others”, Palosaari says.
     If the Finns had not sold the foxes to the Chinese, the fur industry in China would not have grown as quickly as it has. Now blue fox pelts from China are pushing down price levels in Finland, which used to be the only source of blue fox skins.
     “The only thing to do now is to compete with quality. The Chinese have not managed to produce such long and beautiful blue foxes”, Palosaari says, while stroking a large and lush pelt.
     He says that blue fox prices need to rise, as the costs of feed alone amounted to about EUR 25 per sold animal last year.
     
Next year will be a turning point for many fur farmers. In early 2011, rules will change so that a maximum of two fur animals will be allowed to be kept in one cage, instead of three.
     “Many are thinking whether or not to stop, or to buy new cages. I have decided to stop”, Palosaari says.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Understated furs most popular (17.11.2006)
  300 mink set free in fur farm raid (21.4.2004)
  Three Austrians arrested, suspected of planning fur farm raid (13.11.2003)

Helsingin Sanomat