Food security in the Norwegian debate on agriculture : an analysis of global trends and their reflection in the Norwegian media debate

Abstract

The food price crisis in 2007/2008, and the warnings that climate change might have a negative effect on the world’s ability to produce enough food in the decades and centuries to come, have placed food security back on the international agenda. Calls for a fundamentally different understanding of food production, and a turn towards more sustainable agricultural production systems have gained momentum, and industrial agricultural production is the subject of much criticism. Simultaneously, Norwegian agricultural development is mirroring that of countries such as the US, the EU, Russia and Australia, where farms are getting fewer and larger, and increasingly dependent on external inputs. Within this framework, food security is being discussed in a highly food secure country such as Norway. In this paper, I use public texts from selected Norwegian newspapers to illuminate the debate on domestic food security. I categorize and analyze the different arguments put forward in the debate, and find that they differ from the arguments posed by the critics of the industrial agricultural production system on several points. My analysis could contribute to a more informed and pointed debate on future Norwegian food security.