Chinese and Finnish Experts' Opinions on Multifunctional Agriculture and its Relation to Agricultural Policy; Finnish Sociey of Science and Letters, Tiura Foundation

The aim is to identify the concept of multifunctional agriculture (or the multiple roles of agriculture) in the two countries which are not normally associated with the same political agenda with regard to agriculture: China and Finland We will compare the views of experts in both countries on the concept of MFA. In carrying out this task we aim to
1. find out whether the elements of MFA are regarded in the same way in China and Finland ,
2. find out which elements may show a difference in importance and extract some common component from among elements, and
3. discuss the reasons for the results and suggest ways to bridge the gap in order to create a deeper and better understanding of the different functions of agriculture in both countries. Results from interview of 24 Finnish experts and 38 Chinese experts’ opinions on elements of multifunctional agriculture (MFA) are compared through a cross-table analysis method to test the significance of the difference.