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R-9/21 Smart teknologi for et bærekraftig landbruk

Report
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This report summarizes the results and recommendations from the three-year project Smart technology for sustainable agriculture (SmaT, 2018-2021). SmaT was a collaboration between the Norwegian agricultural cooperative Felleskjøpet Agri, the Norwegian agricultural extension service Norsk landbrukssamvirke, the agricultural secondary school Mære landbruksskole, and researchers from Ruralis and NTNU. Technology-oriented farmers and other professionals have also taken part in the collaboration. The work was funded by the Agriculture and Food Industry Research Funds, and through in-kind contributions from the project’s user partners.

Politics and Policies of Rural Authenticisty

Book
Summary

This book explores the notion of rurality and how it is used and produced in various contexts, including within populist politics which derives their legitimacy from the rural-urban divide. The gap between the ‘common people’ and the ‘elites’ is widening again as images of rurality are promoted as morally pure, unalienated and opposed to the cultural and economic globalization. This book examines how using certain images and projections of rurality produces ‘rural authenticity’, a concept propagated by various groups of people such as regional food producers, filmmakers, policymakers, and lobbyists. It seeks to answer questions such as: What is the rurality that these groups of people refer to? How is it produced? What are the purposes that it serves? Research in this book addresses these questions from the areas of both politics and policies of the ‘authentic rural’. The ‘politics’ refers to polarizations including politicians, social movements, and political events which accentuate the rural-urban divide and brings it back to the core of the societal conflict, while the ’policies’ focus on rural tourism, heritage industry, popular art and other areas where rurality is constantly produced and consumed. With international case studies from leading scholars in the field of rural studies, the book will appeal to geographers, sociologists, politicians, as well as those interested in the re-emergence of the rural-urban divide in politics and media. Forlag: Routledge

A-22/21 Tilbake til Grunnrentelandet – ei idehistorisk utgreiing av grunnrenteskatt som prinsipp

Article
Summary

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.

A-15/21 Nationalism and private property

Article
Summary

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

A-14/21 Compressed growth: The transforming power of the round bale technology

Article
Summary

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

A-3/21 Path-dependencies in Norwegian dairy and beef farming communities: Implications for climate mitigation

Article
Summary

Within Norwegian agriculture, combined dairy and beef production has been identified as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and thus targeted for significant reductions. The article examines the path dependency of the dairy and beef production system in Norway and focuses on identifying lock-ins. The authors used qualitative methods to gather information from stakeholder meetings in Trøndelag and Rogaland counties. They explored the stakeholders’ responses to two different visions of agriculture in the future: the improved utilisation of outfields using Norwegian Red cattle and increasing production per animal by using feed concentrates. Six key areas of lock-in were identified: technology investment, culture, feeding strategy, policy, access to new farmland through moorland conversion, and ownership of the climate issue. The findings suggest that the current pathway in agriculture is strongly locked into production orientation through these lock-ins, making a production reduction option difficult to implement. There was also widespread belief among the stakeholders that the system of combined dairy and beef production was a climate-friendly option, suggesting that farmers are not convinced that a change in this direction is required. The authors conclude that the option of reducing production would be difficult to implement without addressing the multiple lock-in effects. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift 75(1):1-14, February 2021

A-8/20 Har norsk jordbruk ein plass i eit klimanøytralt Noreg?: – fokus på mjølk og raudt kjøt

Article
Summary

The Norwegian government and the farmers’ organisations have agreed that the agricultural sector must cut GHG emissions with 5 mill tonn i CO2-equivalents before 2030. At the same time the official policy of the government is to of increase production of food in Norway. For meat and milk producers, this is extra problematic, as large parts of the greenhouse gas emissions are linked to biological processes in livestock that are the very core of their production. Is it possible for the agricultural sector to reach both of these goals? Are there fixed structures and policy paths that make agriculture not able to achieve these goals? Maybe we need another way of thinking about agriculture and GHG emissions to solve this problem? Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift 37(01):59-70

A-7/20 A new sociology of nationalism: the sociology of property and nation

Article
Summary

In this essay, I will reflect upon what has been sociology's contribution to understanding the emergence and development of nationalism and how sociology can contribute to understanding nationalism's present and future through a property rights perspective. The essay will discuss, in particular, how historical sociological analysis of property rights and property rights regimes may be central to understanding nationalism past and future. After a general and brief discussion on the current, so‐called return of nationalism, the essay starts with discussion of some late enlightenment proto‐sociologists, suggesting that these writers actually analysed some crucial early dynamics of property and sovereignty which is central to understanding nationalism. The essay then moves on to suggests why a property rights focus might be a useful perspective to understanding nationalism in the 21st century. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12610

Distriktsopprør – periferien på nytt i sentrum

Book
Summary

Etter kommune- og fylkesvalet 2019 ser vi klare teikn på at det er eit distriktsopprør på gang i Noreg. Frå media høyrer vi om alt frå motstand mot vindmøller, høgare ferjeprisar og alle former for sentralisering: det vera seg kommune- og regionreform, politireform, eller nedlegging av sjukehus og studiestader. Konklusjonen i denne boka er at det er ikkje eitt, men mange distriktsopprør som ulmar her i landet. Felles for alle er at dei tappar politisk energi ifrå motsetninga mellom sentrum og periferi, som den verdsberømte norske statsvitaren Stein Rokkan i si tid påviste var ei grunnleggande konfliktlinje i norsk politikk. Forfattarane i denne boka tek utgangspunkt i denne konfliktdimensjonen, og prøver å fange og analysere kva som ligg under desse opprøra, kva dei har ført til så langt og kva dei kan føre til av endringar i framtida. Kapitla er skrivne av noen av våre fremste samfunnsforskarar innan distrikts- og ruralforskinga. Samla gir dei eit overordna og oppdatert blikk på den norske konfliktdimensjonen sentrum–periferi. Dreyers Forlag Oslo AS

Etter oljen – vår bioøkonomiske fremtid

Book
Summary

Skal bioøkonomien overta når oljen tar slutt? En slik overgang vil innebære en rekke endringer innen blant annet jordbruk, skogbruk, fiskeri, akvakultur, biovitenskap og industri. En «smart» bioøkonomi vil kreve utvikling på tvers av disse biosektorene. Å få til en overgang som også er samfunnsmessig akseptabel for befolkningen, krever kloke politiske beslutninger, og kunnskapsgrunnlaget må styrkes. Satsing på bioøkonomi reiser en rekke nye spørsmål: Hva vil det innebære i praksis at bioøkonomi får en større rolle? Hvordan styrke omstillingen til en mer biobasert økonomi? Hvilke initiativer og virkemidler må til for å gjennomføre et skifte fra olje- til biobasert økonomi? Hva skal man forstå med begrepet bioøkonomi? Etter oljen. Vår bioøkonomiske fremtid diskuterer forskjellige aspekter, muligheter og utfordringer ved en slik overgang. Boka er aktuell for studenter, aktører i næringslivet, politikere, myndigheter, organisasjoner, forskere og ikke minst den interesserte samfunnsborger. Boka er en del av prosjektet BIOSMART, finansiert av Norges forskningsråd og ledet av Ruralis - Institutt for rural- og regionalforskning. Forlag: Cappelen Damm akademisk