Last June, the Norwegian Government signed an agreement to start stockpiling grain to prepare for a possible supply problem towards the end of this decade. This way, Norway is prepping for the ‘unthinkable’.
Climate change has triggered the Norwegian government to Stockpile 30,000 tons of grains. The Global Seed Vault in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, sometimes known as the “doomsday vault,” serves as a global reserve in the event of natural and man-made disasters.
Protecting against potential issues
This strategy is designed to protect against potential issues such as rising food prices in events such as a repeat of the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of wars in Europe, or extreme climate change.
For this year, tons of grain are targeted to be stored by the government. Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, Agriculture and Food Minister Geir Pollestad, and four private firms inked an agreement to store 30,000 tons of grain in 2024 and 2025.
The enterprises will store the wheat, which will be owned by the Norwegian government, in facilities that are already in place all around the nation. This year, at least 15,000 tons will be stored by three of the companies. Companies “are free to invest in new facilities and decide for themselves where they want to store the emergency grain, but they must make the grain available to the state if needed,” the government said.
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Preparing for the ‘unthinkable’
Norway’s ministry for agriculture and food said, “the building up of a contingency stock of food grains is about being prepared for the unthinkable.”
The finance minister added that there should be an additional level of security in case of major disruptions in international trading systems or failures in domestic production.
In the upcoming years, Norway intends to negotiate further stockpiling contracts in order to increase its reserve until 2029. The goal, according to Pollestad, is to store about 82,500 tons of grain by the end of the decade, which would provide the country’s population with enough food to last three months in the event of a disaster, as reported by Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
“This is an important part of the government’s work to strengthen national preparedness,” says Slagsvold Vedum.
Potential future catastrophes
Potential future catastrophes have been spoken of before by various senior individuals. Regarding pandemics, Microsoft founder Bill Gates warned more could arise over the next few years in a column for The New York Times.
On possible upcoming armed conflict, a leaked report from the German Ministry of Defence (Bundeswehr) in January 2023 indicated that a widespread escalation of military action from 2025 was now on the cards, something it said could escalate to all-out conflict by 2028-2029.
Norway announced last year that it would restock grain at a cost of 63 million kroner ($6 million) annually. Norway had stored grain in the 1950s but closed down its storage sites in 2003 after deciding they were no longer needed.
Source: Nature World News
Feature image (on top): USDA-NRCS-Montana-Public-domain