Drives of dead farmers – Varden

 - This is not a particularly active ownership, says CEO Erik Lahnstein in Norwegian Forest Owners Association.

 As much as 7 percent of all agricultural properties in Norway owned by estates.

 I Telemark owned 158 farms of estates where the farmer has been dead for over four years. These farms have round 60,000 acres, 60 square kilometers of forest that should have been productive. It is not certain that it is:

 Rots the root

 - Whether it tarries too long felling rotting wood in the worst case the root, says Lahnstein.

 Totaling 500 square kilometers forest owned by the old estate.

 Now proposes Norwegian Forest Owners Association that there must be a limit to how long the estate may own an agricultural, on two or four years.

 - There is little active forest management on properties owned by estates. This means that management measures as planting, tending young stands and thinning is not carried out, says Lahnstein.

 Here are the most

 3156 agricultural properties, owned by the estate for over four years, would then be put up for sale.

 Most old estates are in Nordland (517), Troms (465), Hedmark (252), Hordaland (212) and Finnmark (196).

 The largest forest areas owned by old estate located in Troms, Telemark and Nordland.

 KrF and Vestre has supported forest owners federation’s demands for limit on how long deceased can own agricultural property. In Sweden can not estate owned farms longer than four years.

 - It is high time that we follow by the Swedes and get set a limit for when estate must be settled, says Erik Lahnstein, CEO of Norwegian Forest Owners Association.