Over the course of the past the agricultural sector has been characterized by radical market changes. Changing market conditions have forced owners of agricultural and Forestry Businesses to make further investments. This increase in investments has led to a greater need for external capital, which has increased the relationship between banks and owners of agricultural and Forestry Businesses. The financial sector is characterized by strong rivalry, which forces banks to create strategic positions in the financial market. Since agricultural and Forestry Businesses are generally seen as secure customers by banks, due to high property and land values, the competition between banks with agricultural and Forestry Businesses as customers has amplified.

This study has been performed with the help of forest machine operators in order to improve the forestry planning at Holmen Skog Örnsköldsvik-region. For Holmen Skog forestry planning is basic for a successful forestry. In a survey I have investigated what can be improved in some areas that are planned for harvesting. The result of the investigation will be used to support the machine operators as much as possible. The study has generated 49.5 % of responses and because of this low response rate, no clear conclusions to anyone else except the responding machine operators can be drawn. It has been proved that there are some details in the forestry planning system that are inadequate, such as marked routs for trails, tractor paths and buffer zones against streams. The quality of forestry planning varies greatly between different locations, as much as 50 % of the responding machine operators thought so. Over 40 % of the responding machine operators claim that the information from Holmen is insufficient. One thing that would improve the forestry planning within Holmen would be to educate all forestry planners and then do continuous follow-ups..

We aim to investigate the risk exposure against commodity prices in the forestry and paper industry. The intension is also to study the affect that the changes in commodity prices has on a company?s market value..

This study is an analysis of a survey that harvester operators working for SCA Ångermanland Skogsförvaltning have been participating in. The purpose of this study is to try to show the harvester operators opinion about the forestry planning that SCA provides. Hopefully will this information lead to suggestion about what part of the forestry planning needs to be improved, if any is needed? Unfortunately only 30 / 60 questionnaire has been returned so no conclusion can be made, except about those who have answered the survey. The answers of the survey indicate a number of areas that needs to be improved. The marked routes needs to be more visible and the education about timber landings must be enhanced.

The aim of this thesis is to present, investigate and especially to analyse the legal rules that apply in the process of changing of the generation of the ownership of Swedish agriculture and forestry family business. The methods that this study include are: unplanned succession of ownership, i.e. inheritance, and planned succession of ownership, i.e. gift and purchase. The succession method that is the most cost efficient must be established in every single case depending on the situation of the current owners and the successors.

Forestry supply chains are a significant part of the Swedish economy. These supply chains are highly susceptible to storms damage. In late 2013 Sweden was hit by multiple storms. This leads to the possibility to research how supply chains react to the shocks that storms cause. The aim of this thesis is to research the costs that storms increase, the actions that are taken within the forestry supply chain, as well as possible benefactors from storms. This thesis bases on previous work on supply chain mapping and cost theories.

95% of the productive forest land in Sweden are now being exploited for forestry. The new Forestry Act of 1993 equate the goal of production and the environmental goal which means that the objective for forestry is a sustainable yield, while the biological diversity must be preserved. Recent years results from the inventories of the Board of Forestry show declining trends in how nature conservation aspects taken into consideration at the felling sites.The aim of this study is to investigate what happends with the nature consideration taken at felling sites in the long run. 20 final fellings in the county of Östergötland were re-inventoried 7-9 years after final felling. These felling sites had previously been inventoried before final felling (P0) and one year after final felling (P1) in the inventory Polytax by the Board of Forestry.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyze existing law concerning joint owner-ship in agriculture and Forestry Businesses. Joint ownership often arises through a succes-sion of ownership, therefore we will go through the most useful methods.Even if the owners of agriculture and Forestry Businesses are getting older, the numbers of succession of ownerships are still low. A succession of ownership is important to plan and its time is demanding. Often it takes three to five years for the completion of a succession of ownership. Therefore, owners must start their planning in time and think about what is to come of their business.

For a long time the Swedish forests were used by the landowner?s mainly for providing wood to the household itself. The wood was not, to a greater extent, considered a product to be sold. During the 1800s the industrial era led to a demanding need for wood in the industry and thus the use of forest, forest production kicked off. The forest production was not regulated by law, which led to a differentiated forest production over the whole country without consideration of re-growth.

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?.

The Swedish forest policies have earlier mainly been focused on two goals: production and environment. The production goal aims to benefit the economical gains from forestry while the environmental goal primarily aims to shield the ecological values of the forest. With the introduction of the Swedish environmental code and the environmental objectives it was made clear that the overall objective for Swedish community development, including the forestry sector, is sustainable development. Sustainable development includes supporting economic, ecologic as well as social values of which the latter seems to have been forgotten in the forestry sector. This was recently brought to attention to the sector and the debate how to handle the social values is now ongoing.The legislator has not been unaware of the social values since they have since long been at least somewhat included in the preliminary works.

The aim of this thesis is to study the private owner structure in the Swedish forestry. This will be done with both a investigation of forest owners in Småland the year 2000 and 2001 and also a statistic research for the private forest owners in Sweden right now and over the years. In Sweden more than half of the total forest area is owned by private forest owner, witch is approximately 22 600 000 ha. Private forestry includes the owner categories private person, ordinary partnership and the estate of deceased persons. The main part of the private forestry is to be found in Norrland but also in the rest of Sweden private forestry constitute a large part of the forestry area.

This work broadly illuminates the conditions for increasing the commissions of forestry services within the whole, or parts of, the western regions of Stora Enso?s operating area. Through a questionnaire, a survey was made examining whether the owners of the forests themselves do the forestry on their woodlands. This foremost concerns the pre-commercial thinning, but also planting and soil scarification. The survey also shows who are buying the most part of their forestry services and who are carrying it out themselves.

Moelven Skog AB is currently working actively to increase the number of certified forest owners in private small-scale forestry. This study was conducted in collaboration with Moelven Skog AB and seeks to learn why private small scale forest owners not yet have certified their forestry and what should be done to increase the number of certified forest owners. The study was conducted through a questionnaire study. The result of the study shows that information needs of forest certification to private small scale forest owners is great. Many non-certified forest owners have not even heard of either PEFC or FSC. The majority of respondents also have no education in forestry.

The Regional Forestry Board in Värmland- Örebro needs increased knowledge on silviculture in broad- leaved forests. This thesis is an inventory of naturally regenerated broad leaved forests, and the results from the inventory have been compared with The Regional Forestry Board?s demands on regeneration results. The result of this inventory was that the regenerated sites were suitable for broad leaved trees, but only half the number of the stands fulfilled the demands of regeneration results of The Regional Forestry Board, mainly because of gaps in the stands. The gaps in the stands were mainly caused by lack of soil preparation and seed trees..