The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK) represents an industry that uses renewable natural resources in a sustainable and economical way.
MTK takes care of various interests and living conditions of farmers, forest owners, rural entrepreneurs and rural people.
The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK) has 156 000 members who are able to get in touch with a local producer association in nearly every town.
Its sister organisation, SLC, has 14 300 members and operates in Swedish-speaking areas. The member associations of both organisations work together with consumers to promote basic production and agriculture in the interests of Finnish food and employment.
There are 14 provincial MTK unions who deal with general management, information and training.
The Central Union’s headquarters are in Helsinki, at the Maalaistentalo (Country People´s House.) Here the Union monitors the agricultural policy of the EU and turns the needs and wishes of farmers, forest owners and rural entrepreneurs into proposals for the development of the countryside in the European Union.
This is also where the profession’s interests are managed at national level: markets for farm production, forestry issues, the concerns of businesses, taxation, financing, legal matters, environmental and agricultural policy, and organisational matters.
The highest decision-making power at MTK is vested in a Commission. MTK´s Forest Commission is the decision-making body for private forest owners.
The executive body is MTK´s Board of Directors, assisted by the management team and a number of committees. They carry out planning tasks by production sector: milk, meat and corn production, ecological production, seed corn, market-garden production, entrepreneurship, social policy, pensions, financing, etc.
MTK's Forestry Council is the forest owners' national policy organisation. It operates through the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK).
The MTK's Forestry Council looks after private forest owners' interests by providing information on wood markets and prices, influencing forest policy and developing the operation of regional Forest Owners' Unions and local Forest Management Associations.
The 8 regional Forest Owners Unions purpose is to develop private forestry and to look after private forest interest in the region, and to guide the Forest Management Associations operations.
The 113 Forest Management Associations assist forest owners in forest management and wood sales, carry out silvicultural and forest improvement work and raise the professional knowledge and skills of forest owners.
Finland joined the European Union on 1 January 1995. MTK, its Swedish-speaking sister organisation SLC and Pellervo (the Confederation of Finnish Cooperatives) have a joint representative in Brussels.
The representative makes sure that the EU machinery, Finland´s representatives and the various interest groups have an up-to-date perception of the objectives of Finland´s agricultural and forestry policies.
The representative monitors the activities of the Committee of Agricultural Organisations in the EC (COPA) and the General Committee for Agricultural Cooperation in the EC (COGECA) and represents Finnish organisations in them, when the need arises.
The organisation´s own newspaper, Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, comes out three times a week.
The newspaper is Finland´s second largest newspaper and is read by approximately 338 000 farmers, forest owners and other readers interested in rural affairs.
MTK´s internal paper is MTK-Viesti.