BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram

Norway’s food security may be and are to some extent threaten by international conflicts, trade sanctions, breakdown of international distribution systems, climate changes, outbreak of crop and animal diseases and major shifts in global demand and supplies of food globally that hinder adequate food and feed imports. In the FOSIP project we will assess and evaluate the foundation, support, opportunities, and limitations for the goal of increased agri-food self-sufficiency in Norway and assess how far an increase will contribute to improved national food security. First, we will run a process with agri-food actors and stakeholders to identify the existing agri-food narratives and the ideological and moral differences between each narrative. Further, we will recruit members into groups representing the existing narratives to define what we call the ‘ideal-types’ of the future agri-food systems. This will be done through a series of interdisciplinary workshops between the members of the groups and the involved researchers. The defined agri-food system ‘ideal-types” will subsequently be translated into quantitative model inputs and analysed. The outcome is production quantity of various agri-food commodities, environmental and economic impacts, dietary impact, and degree of agri-food self-sufficiency. The model outputs will be evaluated with stakeholder involvement and iterated if necessary. The final model outputs will then be used to assess the various “ideal-types” impact on domestic food security using multiple measures. The outcomes of the food-security and agri-food self-sufficiency assessments will be communicated and discussed with policymakers and agri-food actors. Our ambition is broad outreach and debate of outcomes, using different communication channels. The first workshop with actors and stakeholders in food production, industry and retail was held in January 2024. An analysis has also been made of editorial notices and expressions of opinion in the media. The result of the compilation, which will be presented at the next working meeting in the autumn, will contain various narratives that reflect existing ideal visions for a future Norwegian food production. The next step is then to adjust the narrative in line with the responses at the meeting and concretize the narrative so that it can be operationalized. This means that we can calculate the consequences that the different narratives can have for food production, value creation, climate and environmental effects. In parallel with this, we have completed a model for linking data on agricultural product production with intensities and land use. In this way, we can calculate land use for different compositions of agricultural productions and their intensities. Furthermore, the model is designed so that it calculates economic value creation at a finer level of enrolment, and we have chosen to use the division of the country according to agri-environmental payments zones. Some work is being done to expand the model to estimate climate and environmental effects, such as net greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient balances.

In the FOSIP project we will assess and evaluate the foundation, support, opportunities, and limitations for the goal of increased agri-food self-sufficiency in Norway and assess how far an increase will contribute to improved national food security. First, we will run a process with agri-food actors and stakeholders to identify the existing agri-food narratives and the ideological and moral differences between each narrative. Further, we will recruit members into groups representing the existing narratives to define what we call the ‘ideal-types’ of the future agri-food systems. This will be done through a series of interdisciplinary workshops between the members of the groups and the involved researchers. The defined agri-food system ‘ideal-types” will subsequently be translated into quantitative model inputs and analysed. The outcome is production quantity of various agri-food commodities, environmental and economic impacts, dietary impact, and degree of agri-food self-sufficiency. The model outputs will be evaluated with stakeholder involvement and iterated if necessary. The final model outputs will then be used to assess the various “ideal-types” impact on domestic food security using multiple measures. The outcomes of the food-security and agri-food self-sufficiency assessments will be communicated and discussed with policymakers and agri-food actors. Our ambition is broad outreach and debate of outcomes, using different communication channels.