Minister of Agriculture and Food Sandra Borch has now sent an order to the Norwegian Directorate of Agriculture to investigate emergency storage of food grains in Norway.
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The deadline for the report is June 2022.
"It is important for me to point out that the Norwegian food security as of today is good, but it is also important to think about preparedness within food supply. Although Norway normally has access to what the country needs to supplement Norwegian food production through imports from the world market, it will also be important for Norwegian food security with the establishment of emergency storage for food grains," Borch said.
The government is now implementing the work of studying the possibilities for emergency storage for grain, and thus starts the process of following up the Hurdal platform, which stipulates that emergency storage for grain will be established.
"This is the work is important to be better equipped for, among other things, natural events with crop failure and in the face of security policy crises such as the one we are experiencing now," says Borch who has asked the Norwegian Directorate of Agriculture to make this report.
The government wants to facilitate more Norwegian food grain production, and decided earlier this week that Norwegian farmers will have financial security to produce more food grain by offering increased target prices and increased subsidies in the spring agricultural settlement.
"The most important thing we do for food grain preparedness is to facilitate the production of as much of the grain we need in Norway as possible. It is also an important measure to increase national self-sufficiency," says the Minister of Agriculture and Food.
Borch is concerned that emergency storage of grain in Norway must not affect poor countries.
"It is important to get this work started. A possible large-scale establishment of emergency stocks in the western world could exacerbate a demanding situation for many poor countries that depend on driving grain, which we are also taking into account in the work we are to do," Borch concludes. ■