Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen;

I am honoured to be with You today, and it is a great pleasure to welcome You all to this Barbecue party at Staur Guest Farm. I would especially like to welcome all the guests from the USA. I am very pleased to see that so many distinguished representatives from the University of Minnesota, Minnesota Department of Agriculture and others have found time to participate at this Workshop at Staur.

Staur guestfarm is owned by the Ministry of Agriculture, and it is always a pleasure to invite guests to this thriving farming estate. The estate has long traditions and its history stretches back to around 1400.

Tonight we will taste some excellent products produced by Norwegian farmers. The host of this evening will tell you more about the evenings food specialities.

Unfortunately I will not be able to participate at tomorrows workshop. I will therefore like to give my welcome address now, and I hope that you will have interesting discussions during Your stay at Staur Guest farm and at the Agricultural University at Ås.

Welcome Address

In Minneapolis, one year ago, I gave an opening address at the collaborative network seminar between the University of Minnesota, the Norwegian Embassy in Washington D.C. and the Norwegian Consulate General in Minneapolis.

The conference in Minneapolis concluded to meet again in Norway this year to a follow-up seminar to encourage and improve further collaboration between the USA and Norway.

The initiative to this workshop at Staur was taken by The Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture, the Research Council of Norway, the Agricultural University of Norway, and the Royal Norwegian Embassy, Washington D.C. The Embassy has also served as a planning secretariat in the USA, in close co-operation with the University of Minneapolis and the Norwegian Consulate General in Minneapolis. I would like to thank the planning group for organizing this great event at Staur.

The collaborative networking seminar in Minneapolis was very interesting, and the seminar was successful in identifying specific recommendations for collaboration in research, education and policy-making. The main issues were:

• Bringing politicians, academics, businesses, and farmers together to propose solutions
• Pursuing joint industrial-academic ventures
• Developing cross-country, cross-institutional, virtual graduate schools for bioenergy and agricultural education and research
• Establishing bi-lateral research agreements
• Making recommendations for policy-making in both countries

Even though no priorities were given to the numerous areas of research which were listed in the conference proceedings, the Agricultural University of Norway and the Norwegian working group jointly noted that issues related to ” Bioenergy and new biobased products” and ” Livestock security” was to be considered as the most important.

The objective of this workshop is to further specify areas and forms of cooperation, while at the same time enabling operational progress of the joint projects.

This is why we have invited a limited number of participants from research institutions and from the industry to the workshop. I hope this workshop will lead to a concentrated scientific and thematic focus as well as useful forms of cooperation between different science environments and between science and industry.

For many years it has been a goal for the Norwegian Government to improve and strengthen co- operation in a variety of areas between Norway and the USA. My Secretary General, Per Harald Grue will go into how the Norwegian Government are working to follow up this goal in his speak tomorrow.

Innovation is knowledge-based – and knowledge is international. Nothing is more international in its nature than art and science. Norwegians are well aware of the fact that approximately 99 per cent of all new knowledge and technology are developed outside our borders. It is obvious that we need to cooperate internationally. Hence, to carry out our prime minister’s vision, we must strengthen Norway’s participation in international research cooperation. We have a large scale of cooperation in Europe within the EU’s research programmes. It is, however, necessary to strengthen our connections with American scientists, including education of new scientists and student exchange programs.

In Northern America we find many of the leading research institutions in the world. Last year I experienced the development in the Mid-West and the progress you have made in a wide range of business sectors and the development of your society.

North America has traditionally been an important research partner for Norwegian research institutions. In addition the Industry in the USA is one of the most innovative in the world. I hope we can benefit from this by increasing our co-operation on topics of mutual interest.

Within the fields of research that are to be presented tomorrow, I am convinced that Norway has something to offer. Although Norway is smaller in terms of research volume, we do have some excellent research groups within selected areas of this field of science. I believe researchers would benefit from co-operation in this research field. Tomorrow the participants will have the opportunity to explore and identify areas where mutual interests exist.

I would like to put the significance of research and innovation into perspective by focusing on the challenges Norwegian agriculture is facing. I would like to do that by mentioning a few facts about the nature of Norwegian agriculture:

Arable land represents only 3% of total land area, and only 1% of total land area is suitable for production of cereals. Norway is a net importer of food, and we produce only 50% of the calories we consume. The average farm size is about 16 ha of arable land, and nearly 20 per cent of the agricultural area has a gradient exceeding 1:5. Dairy farms have an average herd of 15 cows. The number of farms in Norway has decreased from 155 000 in 1969 to less than 65 000 today. But even if the number of farmers is decreasing, Norwegians care about the development of No\rwegian agriculture. I firmly believe that agriculture and forests are closely related to the soul of my country. The main produce is dairy and meat products, cereals and temperate fruits and vegetables. Approximately three quarters of farm income is derived from livestock production and one quarter from crop production. The produce is almost entirely destined for the national market and plays an important role in ensuring national food security, sustaining the viability of rural areas and safeguarding certain environmental qualities.

Bioenergy provide promising opportunities as a marketable product from forestry and agriculture. This is important for the sectors involved, for rural development and as a contribution to diversify the energy supply and to assist us in our effort to increase the supply of energy from renewable sources.

Further, it will be quite central to strengthen “non food use” from agriculture in a broader sense. In this field we have to use biotechnology in a more comprehensive way. Consumer confidence, however, is a key factor in this regard. It is well known from the public debate that consumers in Europe, Norway is no exception, voice strong scepticism towards appliance of this technology in food production.

In order to ensure food safety for the public we do need extensive expertise on these issues. Research is supported in several areas related to this, as for instance in plant- and animal breeding and in microbial food science.

The Joint U.S – Norwegian Livestock Security Program is bringing together researchers in both countries in order to strengthen the homeland security. Norwegian Dairy Cattle have high genetic resistance to diseases, as well as high milk production and very efficient reproduction. We have a good accumulation of bovine genetic data.

The government wants to strengthen existing areas of cooperation, and to identify areas where increased co-operation with North America is mutually beneficial. In the near future research funding will be established to finance international collaborative research with countries outside the European Union The government is equally prepared to grant economic funding of research collaboration in topics of mutual interest for Norway and the USA.

I hope this conference will meet Your expectations. It is my sincere hope that this workshop will make a basis for further development and organized co-operation between research communities in Norway and USA.

I wish You good luck with the conference here at Staur.

Thank you for your attention.