The Swedish agricultural sector is currently undergoing a substantial structural change. The number of farm enterprises is continuously decreasing and the average farm size is increasing. In combination with increasing number of competitors in the insurance market, the competitive rivalry within this market has increased significantly. With this knowledge in mind, Länsförsäkringar Uppsala initiated this study, which aims to provide an understanding of customer?s view on customer value, related to agricultural insurance and financing.

The majority of the Swedish population were self-provided within agriculture a hundred years ago. Times do change and today the situation is the other way around - most of us live within city boundaries and only few work with farming and related agricultural businesses. One thing that has not changed though, is the need of supplies from Swedish agriculture.What do we think of those products? Are we even aware of the connection between us and agriculture? The Federation of Swedish Farmers, LRF (Lantbrukarnas riksförbund), started their project to strengthen the link between consumers and producers in 2008.This paper is part of the project and its aim is to investigate consumers' views and values upon the effects and products from Swedish agriculture.Opinions and values have been studied through interviews influenced by phenomenology. The results show that the informants in general had a positive approach and thinking concerning the products and effects from Swedish agriculture.

The last years? financial situation has contributed to an increased willingness from the banks to handle risks. The most important risk to cope with is a risk that is related to a customer?s ability to repay loans. Forecasts indicate that in the future, Swedish farmers will be facing profitability challenges, which points to a need to reconsider the banks procedures considering risk management in credit granting for agricultural businesses.Today?s risk management will be given two complements in this study.

Farmers are constantly facing changes, and the exposure to risk requires monitoring these changes. Financial risks, institutional risks, market risks and production risks are the different risk categories that the farmers face. Production risks stems from factors the farmer cannot affect or is beyond his control. The crop?s output is the basis for the primary income of agricultural operations, which is why it is important for farmer to manage their production risk. A tool to reduce the consequences of production risks is crop insurance.

The last years? financial situation has contributed to an increased willingness from the banks to handle risks. The most important risk to cope with is a risk that is related to a customer?s ability to repay loans. Forecasts indicate that in the future, Swedish farmers will be facing profitability challenges, which points to a need to reconsider the banks procedures considering risk management in credit granting for agricultural businesses.Today?s risk management will be given two complements in this study.

Under de senaste 300 åren har jordbrukslandskapet i Sverige genomgått stora förändringar. I början av 1900-talet introducerades konstgödslet och efter andra världskriget ökade gödslingen dramatiskt i syfte att maximera produktionen. Detta har lett till att överskottet av kväve har spolats ut i vattendragen. I detta arbete har stor vikt lagts vid att skapa en egen kvävemodell i syfte att simulera kväveläckaget från jordbruksmarken i Tolångaåns dräneringsområde..

To self-archive is to make research publications freely accessible by depositing them in an open digital archive or on a public website. The aim of this thesis is to explore what Swedish scientists think of self-archiving, what they know about it and how they make use of it, in order to understand why they do not self-archive more actively.A web survey was conducted which was answered by 296 scientists at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Results show that only 24 % have previous experience of self-archiving, but that a majority is willing to self-archive if there are no legal objections or if it is demanded by the research funder. The most important reasons why many scientists do not self-archive are that they feel uncertain about copyright issues and/or lack knowledge about self-archiving..

Placed within the field of recent research concerning religion and contemporary religious landscapes, this thesis aims to show conceptions of human life and body displayed in ten Swedish health magazines. The analysis aims to demonstrate the appearance of body and bodily experience and in addition see in what way ?westernized? religious traditions and methods from east Asia may contribute to perspectives of health. The main theories for the study are objectified versus phenomenological understanding of the human body by Drew Leder (1992; 1990) and Kristen Zeiler (2010). The quote in the main title is from the empirical material (Hälsa & Fitness, 2014 (11), cover).

SMF Skogsentreprenörerna is a nationwide organisation for Swedish forestry contractors. It has about 750 organised companies with somewhere around 1500 logging machines. These machines perform well over 50% of all yearly landed wood in Sweden. The members of SMF also performs more and more of other functions in Swedish professional forestry, such as soil scarification, planting and pre-commercial thinning of younger stands. In order to determine what major priorities SMF should focus on in the future a member survey was initialised and carried out by SMF together with Daniel Larsson-Snygg, student at the swedish university of agricultural sciences SLU. This report presents the result of this survey sent out to all members of SMF. It is intended to answer a number of questions about their entrepreneurship such as: What different kinds of work do these companies perform? How many machines and employees do they have? How old are the company owners and their employees? What are their thoughts about the future of their business? How well does SMF serve their members needs?.

Due to the growing wild boar (Sus scrofa L.) population in Sweden there has been an increase in wild boar related traffic accidents, damage on cropland, and conflicts regarding the management of the wild boar. Knowing what makes the wild boar reproduce and survive more or less successfully in different geographic areas is an important part of managing the population. According to previous studies the wild boars rate of increase varies from county to county. The aim of this study was to test, on the county scale level, if landscape composition and diversity as well as people and hunter densities might be the reason for this variation. The first hypothesis was that a big proportion of forests and cropland would increase the rate of increase.

A large number of farms within the agricultural sector will shortly be facing a point of time where the farm will be transferred to the next generation. The grantor can choose between totally 8 different strategies to transfer the farm, of which purchase, gift and a mixed form of these are the most common. During 2007 almost 10 000 transfers of agricultural estates occurred in Sweden and the expectation for the coming years is that about 15 000 estates will be transferred each year. By the time a transfer is about to materialize there are usually several stakeholders that in one way or another is trying to influence the outcome of the transfer. The choice of transfer method affects the conditions and possibilities for compensating the siblings.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether an inventory of the vegetation overgrowth could be used to indicate a locally nutritional impact. The study was conducted at Märstaån where the water runs through a number of agricultural lands that could lead to an increased amount of diffuse emissions of nutrients. The vegetation overgrowth in the water was also studied in relation to shade, meandering and water flow effects on the vegetation. With this method, no definitive conclusions could be drawn.Where the water was shaded, no vegetation overgrowth could be found. Therefor trees should be planted to prevent any future overgrowths.

It?s been noted that cows held at the section of ruminant medicine and epidemiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (IME), used for the education of veterinary students, have a lower heart rate than what is considered normal for ruminants. In this investigation the heart rates of seven lactating cows were recorded continuously during the period around drying off. The first recording took place at the farm from where the cows were bought, and then their heart rate was monitored after their arrival at IME and further on until they were completely dried off. The results were then compared to the heart rate of seven already dried off cows from the same farm.

With the farming methods of the past century the agricultural landscape has changed. This has led to the fact that many habitats and species have been significantly reduced. Sweden is committed to the preservation of biodiversity through various conventions and laws. In the EU's Common Agricultural Policy there are currently agro-environmental schemes, which were created as an instrument for reducing the negative impacts of agriculture on nature and environment. Within this system any farmer who perform environmental measures are financially compensated for this.

The past and ongoing structural change in Swedish agriculture has led to an increasing number of large-scale farms. The biological factors associated with large-scale farming operations may cause increasing variability, risk and reduced yields due to sub-optimal timing and management of field operations. The theory of economies of scale suggests that largescale production may benefit from lower costs due to scale efficiencies. Thus, large-scale farms may face cost reductions in terms of long term inputs factors, e.g. agricultural machinery.