Since 2008, the initiative Grønn Forskning i Midt-Norge, «Green Research Central Norway» (GFMN), has sought to foster research that meets the needs of actors in the region’s agricultural sector. The initiative has facilitated dialogue and collaboration between farmers, research and development actors, and public-sector agencies. Thematic working groups identify knowledge and research needs and are complemented by seminars targeting research-funding organizations as well as project workshops to develop fundable research projects. This report summarizes Ruralis’ evaluation of GFMN, which was carried out from April-August 2021. The evaluation was requested by Trøndelag County Municipality in connection with its decision to grant financial support to the initiative in fall of 2020. The work has been conducted based on the initiative’s own working documents and reports, a review of relevant research literature, and 30 qualitative interviews with actors connected to the initiative.
- Frode Flemsæter
- Vegard Gundersen
- Margrete Skår
- Berit Köhler
The meaning of riverine landscapes to society has evolved to serve our ever-changing needs, from harvesting and transporting resources to arenas for outdoor recreation and contemplation. From the 18th century, rivers have been important resources for industry and hydroelectric power. The objective of this study is to explore and describe the rhythms of everyday use of a river environment using multiple quantitative and qualitative methods, and to identify subjective, multiple and often competing relations. We use Lefebvre's concept of rhythmanalysis and Ingold's contextual approach as a tool for bridging scientific and methodological disciplines. Our results show a wide breadth in everyday activities and a dynamic relation between people and the river on multiple time scales. The use of the river environment appears orderly and predictable, but the wide spectrum of everyday users on different spatiotemporal scales is diverse and forms multiple rhythms at each locality. The partial lockdown in Norway in response to Covid-19 and the subsequent shifts in people's daily routines changed the rhythm of daily and weekly use patterns, and demonstrates how rhythms can change rapidly in the face of large-scale, societal agitation. We argue that rhythmanalysis is a useful analytical tool in interdisciplinary approaches to better understand the use and valuations of landscapes.
- Egil Petter Stræte
- Kari Anne Holte
- Kari Kjestveit
- Hilmar Rommetvedt
It is well documented that farming is a high-risk industry in terms of fatalities and injuries, and with numerous risk factors associated with operating the farm. It has also proved difficult to find evidence for the effectiveness of interventions. Moreover, farming is in transition, with ongoing technological transformations as well as becoming increasingly more globalized. Thus, new perspectives that allow for more systemic understandings in the management and promotion of occupational health and safety (OHS) are needed. Our main objective is to present an integrated theoretical understanding of the farm as an enterprise and an integrated element in the political-economic agricultural system. The main question is how can farmers organize and manage the farm, in order to simultaneously improve efficiency, quality and OHS based on systemic models for OHS and a systemic understanding of the political-economical system of Norwegian agriculture? The framework is adapted to the Norwegian agricultural context, with ongoing transformations both technologically and organizationally, including visions and plans set by Norwegian agriculture itself. However, the framework can be applied irrespective of national context. lack N.L., Neumann W.P., Noy I. (eds) Proceedings of the 21st Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2021). IEA 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 221. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74608-7_26
In this paper a methodology for a balanced readiness assessment of novel agricultural technologies is developed and presented. The methodology expand on the well-known Technology Readiness Level (TRL) assessments, with a method for assessing TRL as well as Market Readiness Level (MRL), Regulatory Readiness Level (RRL), Acceptance Readiness Level (ARL), and Organizational Readiness Level (ORL) in concert. In the article the Balanced Readiness Level assessment (BRLa) methodology is employed and illustrated on 1) a set of 36 novel agricultural technologies, and 2) on the development of a technology for virtual agricultural fences. The empirical applications in this article indicates that the BRLa- methodology may serve as a fruitful approach for a compound assessment of emerging technologies. The methdodology is relevant for actors involved in advisory services, funding, investment and technology development.
- Rob Burton
- Alexander Zahl-Thanem
- Pia Piroschka Otte
- Marit Ellen Kragt
Agricultural activities and associated land use change are a major contributor to global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making climate change mitigation in the agricultural sector all the more critical. However, farmers' willingness to adopt GHG abatement depends, to a large extent, on the financial implications of new practices. Climate change mitigation is unlikely to be adopted without external (financial, socio-cultural, or other) incentives. The research presented in this paper considers farmers' preferences for financing climate change mitigation practices through public crowdfunding. As a first study of its kind, we investigate farmers' attitudes towards climate change mitigation, knowledge of crowdfunding as a fundraising method, and interest in using public crowdfunding campaigns to finance on-farm mitigation practices. Based on a choice experiment survey with 443 Norwegian farmers, we show that knowledge about crowdfunding as an alternative finance method is generally low. Respondents who are interested in using crowdfunding prefer donation- or reward-based crowdfunding models that cover the full cost of mitigation over a loan-based model or campaigns that only fund a proportion of the costs. A financially secure farming business, previous exposure to crowdfunding, and a strong sense of responsibility to abate climate change are associated with higher farmers’ interest in using crowdfunding. We find that farmers in Norway are hesitant to be publicly presented as recipients of crowdfunding, which suggests that crowdfunding is best set up as joint campaigns (e.g. with other farmers) that are run by intermediary organisations (rather than by individual farmers). Our findings highlight that, while opportunities to use crowdfunding as a fundraising method for agricultural climate change may be limited, properly designed campaigns can provide an effective instrument to engage certain groups of farmers in on-farm climate change mitigation.
This article offers a history of ideas of the principle on ground-rent taxation with a focus on the ideas of Ricardo, Marx and George, and how these have been and might be applied in the Norwegian historical context. Ground-rent tax was applied to hydropower and oil extraction in Norway as a means to bridle the growing inequalities produced by industrial capitalism in the 20th century. The same principles may be applied when Norway is now about to enter its bioeconomic phase, where great value may also be produced from natural recourses.
- Magnar Forbord
- Stian Stensland
- Knut Fossgard
- Kristin Løseth
I Fredman, Peter og Jan Vidar Haukeland (red.) Nordic Perspectives on Nature-based Tourism. From place-based resources to value-added experiences
Aims: This paper focuses on how social inequality is associated with overweight and obesity in children. There is a lack of research with a focus on an important distinction in social inequality, namely geography. The aim of this study was to reduce this knowledge gap by looking closely at the links between rurality and overweight.
Methods: The findings in this paper are based on in-depth interviews with school nurses and teachers in rural Norway. The focus was on their experiences with and knowledge about overweight and obesity numbers in rural versus urban areas.
Results: We used Bourdieu’s terminology to address the challenges related to urban–rural differences, and found that cultural factors connected to tradition, identity and courtesy play an important role in the rural overweight and obesity discourse.
Conclusions: Actors and ‘experts’ working with overweight and obesity and national guidelines need to understand rural contexts and customs and address problems of the countryside on rural, not exclusively urban, premises. Different contexts imply different needs when it comes to reducing the inequalities between rural and urban areas regarding overweight and obesity.
- Madeleine Gustavsson
- Katia Frangoudes
- Lars Lindström
- María Catalina Ávarez
- Maricela de la Torre-Castro
This paper examines the need to embed gender in an empirical examination or conceptual use of Blue Justice. In developing the Blue Justice concept, there is a need to avoid reproducing ongoing and historical omissions of gender issues in small-scale fisheries governance and research. By drawing on the concepts of procedural and distributive justice, this paper explores how gender equity and equality and Blue Justice concerns interrelate, inform and shape each other in fisheries governance. These issues are explored through an analysis of four cases: Zanzibar, Tanzania, Chile, France and the United Kingdom (UK). We find that gendered power inequities in fisheries and women’s marginalised participation in fisheries governance are associated with procedural injustices. These further shape the distributive outcomes in fisheries governance. We argue that any effort to integrate gender into Blue Justice has to address the way that power relations are gendered in a particular fishery – extending the focus beyond the sea and including issues and concerns that are not always included in traditional fisheries governance arrangements revolving around fish resource management.
- Anne Margrethe (Maggi) Brigham
- Jonathon W. Moses
- Pia Piroschka Otte
- Natalia Mæhle
- Boukje Huijben
- Jorick de Vries
This study investigates which climate change frames environmental entrepreneurs can employ in their project descriptions while seeking crowdfunding on online platforms. An explorative analysis of 58 climate change mitigation projects was conducted in four countries with different degrees of maturity of crowdfunding market. The following climate change frames prevail, and appear particularly in the descriptions of the projects with successful campaigns: promotion goal frame, humans-related impact frame, positive valence frame, and near future and now time frame. Many projects with successful crowdfunding campaigns also mention their location. This study contributes to the sustainable crowdfunding literature by addressing an underexplored topic of framing and following a qualitative in-depth approach. Moreover, it can help environmental entrepreneurs understand the landscape of framing opportunities and therefore make a more informed choice of what kind of frames to employ in their project descriptions. Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 314, 10 September 2021
This article reviews research on the relationship between property rights and nationalism. A property rights perspective to the study of nationalism is relevant to understanding the origins and development of nationalism and nation states. Yet, key theorists of nationalism have mostly ignored the relationship between property rights and nationalism, or looked at it only indirectly. There are a variety of ways in which ownership or possession more generally can be related to nationalism, for instance through colonialism, racism, and dispossession (Bannerji et al. 2001; Bhandar 2016; Bhandar & Toscano 2015). This review, however, in order to build a consistent perspective on the historical emergence of nation states and nationalism, will have its main focus on property rights, property regimes and state-building. The literature on state-building and democratization bears important insights about this relationship which can be applied to the study of nationalism. This review will therefore draw on such literature, in addition to works on nationalism where the topic of property has been mentioned, to show how an integrated property rights perspective to the study of nationalism may yield important insights to our understanding of nations and nationalism. Nationalism and Private Property – The State of Nationalism
- Eirik Magnus Fuglestad
- Jostein Vik
- Roger Andre Søraa
- Terje Finstad
Silage bailer technology preserving harvested grass and turning it into silage by a baling machine attached to a tractor is common in most rural regions in Norway. In this paper, we argue that not only have silage bales become a common sight in rural areas, in certain cases, silage bales have also had profound significance for agricultural development without much attention paid to their profound role and implications. Norway represents such a case, and a deeper understanding of how such a now common agriculture technology became established could shed light on how the introduction of new technologies affects agricultural change on societal and structural levels. This includes how technologies interact with societal and organizational aspects of agriculture – the co-production of technology and societal practices on different levels. How does new technologies connect – influence and become influenced by – socio-cultural farm practices and societal, organizational and structural features of Norwegian agriculture? We use the introduction of the silag round bale press in Norway as a case study to shed light on this implementation process and its significance for the Norwegian agricultural sector. Journal of rural studies, Volume 84, May 2021, Pages 174-179
Klimagassutslippene i norsk jordbruk skal ned, men det er uklart hvordan dette best kan gjøres uten at det går utover andre jordbrukspolitiske målsettinger slik som jordbruk over hele landet. Denne analysen ser på muligheter til å opprettholde en stabil matproduksjon og arealbruk gitt at utslipp av klimagasser skal ned og gitt at kjøttforbruket skal reduseres i tråd med myndighetenes kostråd. Ved hjelp av sektormodellen Jordmod vurderes ulike måter å utforme økonomiske virkemidler i jordbruket på, som kan forene disse målene og forutsetningene. Analysen viser at økt bruk av arealtilskudd kan være en viktig nøkkel siden det gir et insentiv til å holde areal i drift selv med færre beitedyr.
- Anne Margrethe (Maggi) Brigham
- Jonathon W. Moses
Norway’s future economy will depend less on petroleum. There are at least two reasons for this: petroleum is a non-renewable resource, and the need to limit climate change. For these reasons, the Norwegian authorities are seeking out greener opportunities in the fields of bioeconomy and renewable energy. This article considers how the management of key natural resources affects the opportunities available for funding Norway’s welfare state in the future. To do this, we compare the regime used to manage petroleum with those used on wind and hydropower, aquaculture and bioprospecting. The different management regimes play a decisive role in determining the size and scope for taxation of the resource rent that these resources produce. Our analysis shows a break in the Norwegian management tradition for natural resources. The government has opted out of the successful management regimes for hydropower and petroleum and replaced them with regimes that can neither ensure public control nor taxation of the resource rent from wind power, aquaculture and bioprospecting. We conclude that the current management regimes in these sectors cannot contribute to a level of public wealth that can match the one that Norway has become accustomed to from oil. Norsk Statsvitenskapelig Tidsskrift 1-2021 (Vol. 37)
- Pia Piroschka Otte
- Maja Farstad
- Natalia Mæhle
- Sissel Hansen
- Olav Soldal
- Per Espen Stoknes
- Catherine Banet
- Anne Margrethe (Maggi) Brigham
- Sarah Khasalamwa-Mwandha
- Paul Isolo Mukwaya
- Geofrey Gabiri
Uganda is among the top three refugee hosting countries in the world and the leading one in Africa, accommodating an estimated 1.4 million refugees. This report provides an empirical assessment of how the Corona Pandemic has affected food security and nutrition for refugees and host community members in the Adjumani District in Northern Uganda. The findings demonstrate an urgent need for more funding to the World Food Programme in Adjumani, and the necessity of building more resilient refugee food systems in preparation for future crises.