2 Key messages from the national dialogue and written submissions

Environmentally friendly food production

To ensure the development of a more environment-friendly food production, there is a need to:

Adapt to climate change and simultaneously reduce the environmental footprint from the food sector, through good framework conditions that ensure recruitment to the sector.
Improve and maintain soil health, e.g., by drawing on knowledge from organic agriculture.
Enhance circular and local value chains, and fully explore the potential of utilizing national resources for feed production.
Optimize the use of grazing livestock as a tool for utilizing Norway’s natural resources.
Assign high priority to farmland preservation, given that only three percent of Norway’s total area is arable land.
Increase the efforts to reduce food waste.

To increase the sustainability of fish and livestock feed, there is a need to:

Ensure that fish and livestock feed comes from sustainable sources, thereby contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food system.
Reduce the import of soy products as ingredients for fish and livestock feed.
Make use of national resources for feed production as a way of increasing sustainability and national self-sufficiency.
Also consider the need for imported feed in future food production.
Reduce bottlenecks, such as unnecessary regulations, that prevent the development of new feedstocks and more circular value chains.
Increase funding to ensure the use and upscaling of national protein sources.
Use life cycle analyses to measure climate footprints.
Further discuss the diverging views on the potential role of genetic engineering for achieving increased sustainability.

To increase competitiveness, value creation and employment in the food value chain, it is crucial to:

Enable the establishment of a diverse range of food businesses throughout the country as a basis for an economically viable and prosperous food sector. To achieve this, producers must benefit from value creation in the food value chain.
Secure economic sustainability in primary production to achieve social and environmental sustainability.
Promote social sustainability, rural development, and settlement throughout the country as important synergies for both the blue and green sectors.
Support the establishment of strong local food value chains, which are key to ensuring a close relationship between food producers and consumers. Cooperation between large and small businesses and clusters that enhance positive synergies must be promoted, as well as measures and incentives directed at small-scale businesses.
Encourage innovation and the implementation of new technologies as key to strengthening competitiveness throughout the value chain. Small-scale businesses’ access to public instruments was emphasized.
Utilize public procurement as a tool to strengthen local value chains.
Enhance knowledge transfer through collaboration in clusters. Policy instruments must be adapted to small enterprises.
Apply technology and innovation as driving forces for a more sustainable food system, thus contributing to a more efficient use of resources and a more resilient production.
Strengthen cross-sectoral cooperation and cooperation throughout the whole value chain.

To achieve and maintain healthy and sustainable diets, it is important to:

Underline that a diet in line with national dietary guidelines promotes health but is also a sustainable diet.
Take the broader food environment into account. This includes improved accessibility to healthy food, knowledge and skills about nutrition and food preparation, and maintaining the social and cultural aspects of food.
Note that there are diverging views on which factors to include in a possible sustainability food label.
Not only emphasize price as a category in public procurements. Other sustainability considerations such as climate and environmental impact, animal welfare and locally produced food were also highlighted as important assessment aspects.
Fully explore available measures that can help promote a healthy, sustainable diet, in particular measures directed at increasing the consumption of fish, whole grains, vegetables, and fruits.
Take the cultural aspect of food into consideration when defining a sustainable diet.
Ensure that food labelling must be informative, easy to understand for the consumers and harmonized across Europe.

In terms of Norway’s contributions to safeguarding sustainable global food systems, it is important to:

Strengthen efforts aimed at addressing food insecurity and the impacts of climate change and loss of biodiversity on a global level. Small-scale farmers in developing countries are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Emphasize that actions on the global and national level are interrelated. Thus, national strategies for self-sufficiency, preparedness and sustainable management of natural resources reduce vulnerability on a national level while reducing pressure on land use globally. Relevant national-level efforts include work on seed security, reduction of food loss and waste, and the promotion of good agronomic practices.
Declare that Norway can contribute globally through leadership, capacity-building, knowledge transfer and technology export.
Note that Norwegian expertise within plant and animal health, as well as the Norwegian experiences with family farming and cooperatives are highly relevant in a global context.
Give priority to promoting Farmers’ Rights and seed security.

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