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Sausage seller to the journalist: No, we don’t eat too much sausage. On the contrary, we should eat more.
The journalist turns to the camera: INTERESTING!
This meme pops up in the back of my mind when I suffer my way through NRK’s agricultural news on Good Friday itself. Because there is no telling what trials we will have to go through if the potato tariff rises, warns potato importer Trygve Tønjum in Dagsrevyen.
Spanish potatoes will leave NOK 40 to NOK 104 per kilo in Norway, says Tønjum, who according to reporter Line Tomter is “experienced”. At least he is seasoned enough to dazzle Tomter.
Ivar Gaasland, the agricultural inspector which was already out of date when he was paid to deliver “research” on the Norwegian food sector in the 90s, is still viable source material at Marienlyst. This time Gaasland gets the microphone to say that the turnover of potatoes will decrease when the customs duty increases, because then the price of all Norwegian potatoes will increase.
It should have gone up for Gaasland that Norwegian potato farmers quit, because the price does not increase. They are not interested in producing food at a loss to satisfy consumers.
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In Gaasland’s world, this is perfectly fine – the dilemma is solved with increased imports. Increased duty on food has nothing to do with food preparedness, it has to do with Norwegian business interests, says Gaasland.
The Conservative Party claims to care about Norwegians commercial interests. In NRK, agricultural policy spokesperson Lene Westgaard-Halle says that all parties are concerned with raising the level of self-sufficiency. It is not correct.
Because if you don’t want the funds, then you don’t want the goal either. After the change of government in 2021, Landbruks-Høyre has barely done anything other than cut down the funds that can give us increased self-sufficiency: Better customs protection, stimulus for agriculture throughout the country, better economics in Norwegian food production.
– Price increase for consumers is the intention of the government’s customs measures, says Westgaard-Halle. That’s not true either.
A majority in the Storting, including the ruling parties, have said that the farmers must be paid better for their products. The farmers do not pass the bill to the consumers, but to the industry and trade billionaires.
Lene Westgaard-Halle says right enough that we need to ensure that the Norwegian farmer is well paid. But the potato farmers must find themselves in poor pay, because if the potatoes become more expensive, we will choose rice and pasta.
– And we don’t want that, says Westgaard-Halle. If that is true, perhaps the Conservative Party will do something about the price of rice and pasta? Or cut VAT on healthy, Norwegian potatoes?
Consumers are already choosing ditch the potato in favor of rice and pasta, and have done so for a long time. Even though the potato producers have been paid so poorly that more and more of them quit, and even though potatoes have been and are a very cheap source of carbohydrates and nutrients.
The Conservative Party’s agriculture spokesperson goes full populism when, in NRK’s Politisk kvarter this week, she asks consumers to note that SP is going to increase the price of potatoes in the spring agricultural settlement. Eh, yes, since we have inflation in this country, producer prices for food go up everyone agricultural settlement, also with the Conservative Party in government. Someone in the Conservative Party should ask themselves whether they want to meet their own agricultural rhetoric knee high at the door after the change of government.
While agriculture waits on increased customs duties, it may be an idea to use the income tools you already have.
Although the shops this Easter have sold as many or more eggs than last Easter, they would like to have even more. With increased demand, one would think that the producer price also went up. But no.
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The so-called planned the average wholesale price for eggs is NOK 25.40 per kg for the entire first half of the year. The price was set on 3 October last year. The market regulator Nortura has sat quietly in the boat through the spring’s demand growth, without touching the price to the producer. Although Nortura expects that egg sales will increase by 2.5 per cent this year, while the increase in production will be only 1 per cent.
– When there was too much meat, then the tool was to lower the price. Now there are too few eggs, comments acting general secretary Anders Bakke Klemoen of the Småbrukarlaget, on Facebook. He calls for logic.
– Not much logic there, no. replies Snåsa farmer Trine Vaag. She is not some random internet role from Trøndelag, but former chairman of Nortura.
When both SP’s farmer income measures and Nortura’s low price policy is completely in the spirit of the Conservative Party, one wonders if both logic and politics have failed.
