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Norwegian farmers warn of vegetable shortage if energy support isn’t increased

Frazer Norwell
Frazer Norwell - [email protected]
Norwegian farmers warn of vegetable shortage if energy support isn’t increased
Farmers in Norway have warned that Norway may see a shortage in vegetables towards the end of winter unless support is increased. Pictured are carrots. Photo by Ben Michel on Unsplash

Farmers in Norway have warned that unless a cap on energy support for the agricultural sector is raised, there may be a shortage of vegetables grown in Norway towards the end of winter.

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Farmers are calling on the government to raise the current cap for energy support in the agricultural sector, otherwise, the country may run low on vegetables that are stored throughout the winter, agricultural newspaper Nationen reports.

Current support for farmers is capped at 20,000 kWh per month. This is too little, farmers argue. Farmers who store their vegetables to be sold throughout the winter are particularly affected by this cap, according to the paper.

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“The situation is the same for most people who deal with storage vegetables. We have target prices and cannot take the cost increase out into the market. Without changes to the ceiling on electricity support, I think there will be few storage vegetables to be found in the shops in March and April and beyond,” Asbjørn Stokkeland, a vegetable farmer, told the paper.

The farmer from Jæren said that his electricity expenses had risen from between 500,000- 700,000 kroner between 2016 and 2020 to as much as 4 million kroner this year.

Norway’s parliament will reconvene on September 19th to discuss the current energy crisis. On numerous occasions, the government has said that it is working on a support scheme for businesses that have so far been excluded from current support and subsidy schemes.

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