Business Case · Land & Acreage

How much land does this actually need?

Land is the constraint that caps the herd, sets the lease bill, and decides how much subsidy the operation earns — so it deserves its own number rather than a guess. This page builds the acreage from the bottom up: summer grazing + winter forage, driven by how many animals stand on the ground at once. Move the sliders to see how the answer changes.

The short answer. Finishing 50 animals a year means carrying roughly 60–65 animals at any moment — you own each one about 15 months, so cohorts overlap and the herd standing on the land is always bigger than the number sold. On cultivated grass that herd needs about 50 ha. Go all-in on semi-natural pasture — the naturbete land that earns the best price premium and the highest grazing subsidy — and the same herd needs about 95 ha, because that land carries roughly half as many animals per hectare. A realistic mix of the two, which is what the calculator opens on, lands near 65 ha — close to the ~60 ha the ROI dashboard assumes. The land strategy is therefore a direct trade-off: fewer intensive hectares, or more extensive ones that pay you back in premium and support.

Land calculator

Start from a preset, then adjust. Everything below recalculates instantly.

Where the hectares go

Grazing area is what the animals stand on through the summer; forage area is the ley you cut for winter feed. Both are needed at the same time — you cannot graze the field you are also cutting for silage.

Cultivated grazing (betesvall)

Semi-natural pasture (naturbete)

Winter forage ley

The cost of the naturbete choice

Total hectares needed as the share of grazing on semi-natural pasture rises from none to all. Naturbete needs more land, but each hectare earns a higher grazing subsidy and unlocks the strongest premium story — so more land is not automatically worse.

Hectares required

Your current setting

Land budget, line by line

What drives the number

Four assumptions do nearly all the work. These are the ones to verify locally before signing a lease — the rest is arithmetic.

Rules that constrain the land

Grazing is mandatory, and the Stockholm region has the longest requirement. Swedish rules oblige cattle to be out on pasture for a set number of days each summer — the region you farm in decides how many. That means pasture is not optional even if you could feed the animals indoors more cheaply.
Minimum area to claim support. Area-based payments require a minimum holding size, so a very small operation earns no land subsidy at all. See the grants page for the threshold and what each hectare pays.
Organic and KRAV certification limits stocking density, chiefly through a cap on how much manure nitrogen may be applied per hectare per year. In practice this sets a ceiling on animals per hectare that is well above the extensive grazing this model assumes — the stocking rate here is limited by grass supply long before it is limited by the nitrogen rule.
Herd-size thresholds trigger environmental permitting. Above a certain number of animal units the operation needs a notification or a permit under the environmental code. The plan deliberately stays below it — see the feasibility page.

Verify before you sign. Every figure on this page is a planning estimate. Grass yields on a specific field vary by soil, drainage and season far more than any model can capture, and a hectare of poor naturbete may carry half what a good one does. Walk the land in spring, ask the outgoing farmer what it actually carried, and get the stocking rate confirmed by an adviser before committing to a lease term. One assumption in particular is worth resolving first: the water & feed page rebuilds forage demand from intake as a share of body weight and lands about a quarter above the 8 kg DM/day default used here — which would add roughly the same proportion to the forage hectares.

Sources

Every externally-sourced figure on this page, with what the source actually says. Rates and statistics are re-published annually — check the year before relying on any of them.

Open questions

Acreage is modelled from stocking rates; these are the questions a specific parcel has to answer.

Question	Why it matters	Where the answer comes from
What does this specific field actually carry, and what does the ley yield?Blocking	Stocking rate and forage yield are the two largest levers on the answer, and both vary more between fields than any model can capture.	The outgoing farmer — ask what it carried, not what it should carry. Then a local adviser.
Is the pasture registered as eligible, and as naturbete, in the block database?Blocking	Payments follow the registered block, not the grass. Land that grazes well but is not registered earns nothing.	The SAM block map, and Länsstyrelsen Stockholm if a block looks wrong.
What is the local arrende rate around Stockholm?Important	Jordbruksverket's regional statistics stop at NUTS2, so the 2,100 SEK/ha national average is a floor rather than a local price.	Ludvig & Co's land price report; local land agents; the neighbours.
Should the forage assumption be 8 or 10 kg DM per animal per day?Important	The water & feed page derives ~10 kg from body weight, about a quarter more than this page's default — which would add roughly a quarter to the forage hectares.	A feed adviser with your forage analysis. Until then, plan the acreage on the higher figure.

Prepared August 2026 as a planning aid. Areas are modelled from stocking rates and forage requirements, not measured on a specific holding; SEK figures are indicative, ex-VAT. This page assumes the buy-and-finish model described on the operating model page — bought-in weaned calves finished on grass, no breeding herd — and uses the same lease rate as the ROI dashboard. Not financial advice.