– Small and medium-sized farms are completely production for Norway to have food throughout the country
Smaller medium-sized farms and absolutely crucial for Norway to be able to have food production throughout the country. Therefore, it is important to produce on such farms to ensure the inhabitants good and safe Norwegian resources and better food preparedness. Then we must ensure that the more marginal agricultural areas in our country can be used for food production. This also contributes to jobs across the country.
We must preserve and further develop the quality and competitive advantages that lie in producing Norwegian, safe and clean food, with little use of antibiotics. This is something Norwegian consumers appreciate and demand more and more. And we must ensure good animal welfare, which has long been a competitive advantage for Norwegian agriculture. Then we must ensure that we have a good and strict regulations for animal welfare, based on knowledge of the needs of the animals. We have strengthened the Norwegian Food Safety Authority so that they will have sufficient resources to operate, frequent inspections and a targeted collaboration with the production industries. The government has also announced that there will be a new animal welfare report, and this will be important work to ensure that Norway has animal welfare at the top of the world.
Under the Solberg government, and especially under the Minister of Agriculture Listhaug, we saw a favoring of large farms at the expense of the small and medium-sized ones. We believe that such a structural development is not compatible with Norwegian nature, the resource base and the goal of agriculture throughout the country. This is especially true in milk production, where quota ceilings for milk have increased sharply. The Labor Party has therefore stated in its program that we will ensure milk production in the districts with an adjusted and lower quota ceiling, and this has been followed up in the Hurdal platform.
We must also strengthen the investment instruments in agriculture and target these towards special small and medium-sized dairy farms, in order to follow up the requirement for loose housing in barns. When we see that investments are declining in most counties, there is cause for concern, because we know that many will have to upgrade their barns from stall barns to free-range barns before 2034. We therefore followed this up with an investment already in the first state budget from the Labor Party and Center Party: NOK 200 million extra in investment funds.
The Labor / Social Democrats government has allocated a total of NOK 1.5 billion to agriculture between two agricultural settlements, and this is worth noting. Already a few weeks after the change of government, an agreement was entered into between the state and agriculture in the additional negotiations for last year’s agricultural settlement, when an agreement was reached on a preliminary compensation of NOK 754 million as a result of extraordinary costs for fertilizers and building materials.
And not least, it was important that we now in February put in place a temporary scheme with electricity support for agriculture and greenhouses, with a grant of 500 million kroner. The first payments under the scheme are already on their way to farms and horticulture that are struggling with high electricity bills.
For us in the Labor Party, it is also to ensure a decent and good working life, and this must also apply to those who are employed in agriculture. In the Hurdal platform, we state that we will create a plan for decent wages and working conditions for employees in agriculture and the green sector together with the parties in working life, with the aim of making the industry more attractive to Norwegian workers. In order to recruit young people into the industry and get more women in, we also believe that it is important to increase the focus on the farmer’s health and welfare, good social conditions and welfare schemes, also in connection with pregnancy. This will be part of the investment in a new course in agriculture.
After eight years of right-wing government, much needs to be rectified in agricultural policy. We must have a more forward-looking agricultural policy that is adapted to the geography of our country. The Labor Party and the Center Party are already taking new steps to ensure growth and optimism in our agriculture.
Karianne B. Bråthen (Labor Party), member of the Storting’s business committee