The challenge of food self-sufficiency

Should we consider the import of feed, foreign machinery, and labour? Should we calculate in kilos, calories, or protein? And what about the fish we export?

Mads Svennerud, Senior Adviser at NIBIO, explains that NIBIO seeks to maintain the same methods and assumptions that have been used since the early 20th century.

“We calculate gross consumption like this,” he explains.

Production + Import – Export = Consumption.

“The figures are given in kilos and energy, which makes a difference for fruit and vegetables. If we calculate in kilos, fruit and vegetables made up a quarter of what we ate in 2023. If we calculate in energy, it was only 5%. We are quite self-sufficient in products from animal husbandry, less so with grains and vegetables.”

In the 2021 Hurdal Platform, the government set a target of 50% self-sufficiency, corrected for the import of feed raw materials. The idea that the figure should be adjusted for feed import is new. Svennerud emphasises that Norway also imports other things, such as labour and machinery.

The self-sufficiency ratio (the Norwegian ratio excludes animal feed) shows how much of the wholesale consumption of food comes from Norwegian production based on current dietary habits, but we have several related concepts. The coverage ratio shows how much food energy we would have if the food that we export was used in Norway. This primarily concerns fish.

Self-sufficiency capacity also considers the possibility of shifting the diet to a more plant-based one. Much of the grain currently used for animal feed could be used for human food instead.