from vision to action adescription and analysis of the food system in

Transcription

FROM VISION TO ACTION
A DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE FOOD SYSTEM
IN TOLGA
MASTER OF AGROECOLOGY
AUTUMN 2010
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES, ÅS
EVA BROD
NUMA COURVOISIER
MAÏLYS FERRÉ
HAO HANJIE
BRAM TAKS
A DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE FOOD SYSTEM IN TOLGA
Acknowledgement
We would like to express special thanks to our key client and host Helge Christie and his wife
Bjørg Inger Christie without whom this project would not have been a success. We are extremely grateful for your support and willingness to help us trough out our project.
We would also like to thank Erling Aas-Eng, Gunnbjørn Trøan, Ragnhild Åshaug, Kjell
Dalløkken and Per Sindre Killingmo, Helene Lund Volden, Guri Nordsveen as well as the
teachers at Lyngbo Barnehage and Ingunn Løvold. Trond Vilhelm Lund, Grim Jardar Aasgård, Jan Tollan, Esten Ole Nygjelten, Amund Christie Ryalen, Ola Eggen and Liv Bjørnstad;
who kindly received us and took on their time to talk with us, as well as everybody who actively participated and shared ideas during the workshop on the 2nd of November 2010.
We hope you we find this report useful for the future in Tolga.
Enjoy the reading!
Summary
This report is the result of the study of the food system in the municipality of Tolga based on
the Soft System Methodology by Peter CHECKLAND. The Soft System Methodology is a holistic approach that integrates all the stakeholders of the food system in the economical, social,
political and environmental context. However, this report has a special focus on the impact of
the Økoløft project in the municipality. The global aim of the Økoløft project is to increase
organic consumption and production to 15% by 2020.
The information gathered in this report is based on two case visits. During the first visit (5th-10th
of September 2010) the purpose was to understand the current situation in order to organize a
workshop during the second visit (1st-4th of November 2010).
Hence, the first part of this report is a rich picture of the current situation of the food system in
Tolga and a description of the impact of the Økoløft project on the municipality based on interviews that were run during the first case visit.
The second part is an analysis of the food system where different tools were used in order to
identify those issues that are hindering forces to achieve the aims of the Økoløft project in
Tolga.
Then, in the third part all the visions that where developed by the stakeholders during the
workshop are collected. Additionally those visions that rose during a seminar on visionary
thinking in class are presented.
The last part of the report is the development of an action plan for each feasible vision in order
to provide change in the municipality of Tolga and to support the Økoløft project in reaching
its goals.
The purpose and the structure of the workshop and this report are the same. Therefore they are
both called “from Vision to Action”.
Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1
Who are we? ...................................................................................................................................2
The Project „Økoløft i kommuner“ ..................................................................................................2
Process and Methodology .................................................................................... 3
The Food System in Tolga ................................................................................... 4
General Facts about the Area of Tolga .............................................................................................5
Exploration of the Food System in Tolga .........................................................................................6
Producers.....................................................................................................................................6
Processors ....................................................................................................................................9
Distributors ................................................................................................................................11
Consumers.................................................................................................................................12
The Økoløft Project in Tolga ............................................................................. 15
Consumption of Organic Products in School and Kindergartens ..................................................... 15
10% Increase of Organic Products in Grocery Shops. Increase Understanding of Short-travelled
Food. ............................................................................................................................................17
Making the Municipality Canteen to an Organic Canteen ..............................................................17
Promoting the Municipality of Tolga as “Green Municipality” in the Media .................................. 17
Organic Production .......................................................................................................................17
Improvement of the Rich Picture ........................................................................ 18
SWOT Analysis of the Food System in Tolga......................................................... 18
Key Issues...................................................................................................... 19
Lack of Information about what Organic Production is ..................................................................19
Confusion of Organic and Local Products ......................................................................................19
Disappointment of some Stakeholders about the Gap between Words and Acts of the Økoløft Project
.....................................................................................................................................................20
Visions .......................................................................................................... 20
Adapted Tolga’s Visions that derived from the Workshop hold on the 2nd of November, 2010 ......... 21
Agrotourism ..............................................................................................................................21
Rørosfé ......................................................................................................................................21
Workshops and Open House ......................................................................................................21
Forum for Kitchen Inspiration....................................................................................................22
Processing Cooperative ..............................................................................................................22
Our Visions that derived from a Seminar on Visionary Thinking .................................................... 23
Newsletter .................................................................................................................................23
Festival ......................................................................................................................................24
Mobile Shop ..............................................................................................................................24
Biogas Plant ...............................................................................................................................25
How to solve the Key Issues............................................................................... 25
Action Plans................................................................................................... 27
Agrotourism ..................................................................................................................................28
Rørosfe..........................................................................................................................................29
Workshops and Open Houses ........................................................................................................30
Processing Cooperative ..................................................................................................................32
Newsletter .....................................................................................................................................33
Festival .........................................................................................................................................35
Mobile Shop ..................................................................................................................................37
Biogas plant...................................................................................................................................39
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 42
References ..................................................................................................... 43
Internet references .........................................................................................................................43
Articles and Reports ......................................................................................................................43
Appendix ....................................................................................................... 45
Table of Illustrations
Picture 1: From left to right Bram (Belgium), Hao (China), Numa (Switzerland), Eva (Germany) and
Maïlys (France) ...................................................................................................................................2
Picture 2: 5 Steps to Future Wanted Situation ......................................................................................3
Picture 3 : Location of Tolga (GULESIDER, 2010) .................................................................................5
Picture 4: A Rich Picture of the Food System in Tolga – seen from our Perspective ..............................6
Picture 5: Detail of our Rich Picture: Production System in Tolga ........................................................7
Picture 6: Detail of our Rich Picture: Chicken (yellow circle) and Vegetable (green circle) Production in
Tolga ..................................................................................................................................................8
Picture 7: Detail of our Rich Picture: Processing System in Tolga.........................................................9
Picture 8: Detail of our Rich Picture: On-farm Processing of Milk on Eggen Gardsysteri (green circle),
Processing of Meat in the Municipality of Tolga (red circle) and Processing of Milk and Meat in the
Municipality of Røros (blue circle) .......................................................................................................9
Picture 9: Detail of our Rich Picture: Processing Companies TINE (blue circle) and Nortura (red circle)
.........................................................................................................................................................11
Picture 10: Detail of our Rich Picture: Distribution System in Tolga .................................................. 11
Picture 11: Detail of our Rich Picture: Farmer's Market (green circle), Rørosmat BA (dark red circle)
and farm shop (purple circle) .............................................................................................................12
Picture 12: Detail of our Rich Picture: Consumers in Tolga: Private Consumers (light blue circle);
School (yellow circle); Kindergarten (deep blue circle); the Municipality Canteen (red circle) and the
Elderly House (purple circle) .............................................................................................................13
Picture 13: The Impact of the Økoløft Project on the Municipality of Tolga (Visualized in our Rich
Picture) .............................................................................................................................................15
Picture 14: Comments on our Rich Picture ........................................................................................18
Picture 15: The mayor is sharing a vision with the participants ...........................................................20
Picture 16: Series of Possibilities of how to handle the Key Issue "Lack of information about what
organic production is" .......................................................................................................................26
Picture 17: Series of Possibilities of how to handle the Key Issue "Confusion of organic and local
products” ..........................................................................................................................................26
Picture 18: Series of Possibilities of how to handle the Key Issue "Disappointment of some stakeholders
about the gap between words and acts of the Økoløft project" ............................................................27
Picture 19: Building Together an Action Plan ....................................................................................27
Picture 20: Action Tree Agrotourism .................................................................................................29
Picture 21: Action Tree Rørosfé .........................................................................................................30
Picture 22: Action Tree for Open Farm Days .....................................................................................31
Picture 23: Action Tree for Having a Local Cooperative ....................................................................33
Picture 24: Action Tree Newsletter ....................................................................................................35
Picture 25: Action Tree Food Festival................................................................................................37
Picture 26: Action Tree Mobile Shop .................................................................................................39
Picture 27: Diagram of a Biogas Plant (Baidu 2010) ...........................................................................41
Picture 28: A Rich Picture of the Food System in Tolga – seen from our Perspective .......................... 46
Table 1: Monthly Statistics in Vingelen (METEOROLOGISK INSTITUTT, 2010) ......................................5
Table 2: A SWOT Analysis of the Food System in Tolga ...................................................................19
Table 3: Advantages and Disadvantages of Agrotourism ....................................................................28
Table 4: Advantages and Disadvantages of Processing Cooperative.................................................... 32
Table 5: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Newsletter ....................................................................33
Table 6: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Festival .........................................................................35
Table 7: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Mobil Shop...................................................................37
Table 8: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Biogas plant ..................................................................39
Introduction
In the framework of the master program Agroecology M.Sc. at the Norwegian University of
Life Sciences in Ås one of the projects is to work in connection with a municipality that is part
of the program “Økoløft i kommuner” (ØKOLØFT IN NORWAY, 2010). The goal of the project
is for us, the students, to link the theory we have been learning in class with the practice during
a real-life casework.
The core of this master program is built on a different way of learning: The process of learning
is oriented on action. Hence the theory learnt in class is used to support us during our activities
in situations “out there”. We explored the food system in the municipality of Tolga. The aim
of the project was to evaluate the progress of the Økoløft project in Tolga so far, and to propose recommendations for continued success in the future.
Therefore, this document is the outcome of the workshop we organized the 2nd of November to
which we invited the main stakeholders of the food system in Tolga. In order to be able to run
the workshop we visited Tolga twice and gathered information and analyzed the current situation. This is why the report is based on the structure of the workshop.
We were aware that the students’ group who came to Tolga the last year oriented their workshop on visioning. The participants of the seminar came up with many relevant ideas. Hence
we decided to build up our workshop on last year’s vision and to take a step further by focusing
on the process of how to make a change. Therefore we called our workshop “from vision to
action”. We really wanted to give you the feeling that you could get started immediately.
The main purpose of our workshop was to bring the Tolganer together and to offer a platform
for sharing ideas about future change.
Based on the goals of the workshop we hope to answer to following questions by this report:
What is the current situation of the food system in Tolga like?
in order to be able to find answers for
What are concrete visions for the future?
How can they be put in practice in order to make a future change in the municipality of
Tolga?
To give you a better understanding of our approach, first of all we will explain the process and
methodology of our inquiry in Tolga. Then we will present the food system in your municipality. This description and analysis of the food system will lead us to an analysis of the potentials
and weak points in the area, which is followed by a presentation of key issues that we found
important.
In the next half of the document, we present opportunities and strategies for eventually building a change and working on making the key issues memories of the past.
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Who are we?
Our students’ group is from
all over the globe with different backgrounds, including
educations, cultures, experiences and values.
Picture 1: From left to right Bram (Belgium), Hao (China), Numa (Switzerland),
Eva (Germany) and Maïlys (France)
Here are the members of our group:
•
Eva Brod, Germany. B.Sc. in “Organic Farming and Marketing”, FH Eberswalde.
Worked in the biological-dynamic farm Alm Østre Gård, Stange.
•
Numa Courvoisier, Switzerland. B.Sc. in “Biology”, University of Neuchâtel.
Practical experience in an Agricultural School in Switzerland.
•
Maïlys Ferré, France. B.Sc. in “Agronomy and Food Industry”, ISA Lille.
Practical experience on dairy farms and in a cheese dairy
•
Hanjie Hao, China. B.Sc. in “Land Resources Management”, Agricultural University
of Shandong.
Worked in land resource bureau of the Chinese government in his hometown.
•
Bram Taks, Belgium. B.Sc. in “Agriculture”, Haute Ecole de la province de Liège.
Practical experience in Casamance (Senegal) and in Belgian farms for the last three
years.
The Project „Økoløft i kommuner“
The cooperation of the municipality of Tolga and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences
originates in that the municipality has been part of the project “Økoløft i kommuner”
(ØKOLØFT IN NORWAY, 2010) since 2008.
The government of Norway decided to start this program based on the Soria-Moria explanations in 2008. The two aims of this project are to reach a level of 15% of organic production
and consumption by 2020 (THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD, 2010). The government elected 50 municipalities in Norway where this project has been established through the
community.
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The task of the person in charge of the Økoløft project in the municipalities is to find ways to
reach the aims of organic production and consumption. In Tolga, Helge Christie, is the director of the Økoløft project steering committee. Therefore he was also our key stakeholder. He
kindly took on his time to talk to us and to help us throughout the project.
The main means of the Økoløft project to reach its goals are the increase of organic products in
public institutions, the education of consumers (e.g. at school through different activities; in
shop through product promotion), advice for producers (both organic and conventional) and
advice and contacts (e.g. with organic producers) for distributors.
Process and Methodology
To accomplish our project we visited the municipality of Tolga twice: Once in September 2010
(5th-10th of September 2010) and the second time in November 2010 (1st-4th of November 2010).
The methodology we applied throughout this project is inspired by the Soft System Methodology (SSM) that was developed by Peter CHECKLAND in the late 60’s. More than a methodology, it is also a learning tool, which is very useful to understand complex situations.
Soft systems include the idea that every human action, including the researcher, has a function
relevant to the situation (CHECKLAND and POULTER, 2006). They were developed for situations where there is no clearly defined and commonly agreed set of outputs due to differing
worldviews of stakeholders.
This methodology doesn’t only take all the economical, political and environmental aspects
into account but considers also cultural aspects and personal wishes. The SSM inquiry can be
divided in three main steps: Exploring the current situation, identifying the future wanted situation and proposing action plans for how to change the situation.
Picture 2: 5 Steps to Future Wanted Situation is a simplified and generalized illustration of how
SSM, a qualitative methodology, is applied in real life. Originally CHECKLAND suggests seven
steps (BRELAND, 2010) between the unstructured problem situation and action to improve the
situation, Picture 2 is therefore a condensed version.
Picture 2: 5 Steps to Future Wanted Situation
Firstly there is a problematic situation, e.g. the instruction of the Norwegian government to
increase organic consumption and production as in our casework. To answer the question
“What is?” during our 1st case visit in Tolga we gathered as much information as possible about
the food system in the municipality. We were running interviews and we were observing and
experiencing the area. We visited farmers, local processors, shop managers, school managers
and other important stakeholders in Tolga. Thus, most of the information in this report can be
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led back to the results of our interviews during the 1st case visit. Also we collected information
about the Økoløft project in the municipality, and evaluated the situation by comparing it with
the two main goals of the project.
The second step was to create a rich picture of the whole food system with all the information
we could collect showing all the connections with different stakeholders. By help of a rich picture we tried to make sense of the mass of data we had collected (Picture 28: A Rich Picture of the
Food System in Tolga – seen from our Perspective). By creating the rich picture and a SWOT analysis (see SWOT Analysis of the Food System in Tolga for further explanation) of the current situation of the food system, we could identify the present key issues.
Then – based on the problematic situation and its key issues – a vision was invented. The dots
between the two compartments problematic situation and vision in Picture 2: 5 Steps to Future
Wanted Situation indicate that the vision is independent of what seemed to be realistic at the
current state. The vision is a combination of ideas we gathered during a seminar on visionary
thinking in class and visions, you – the inhabitants of Tolga – came up with during the workshop we organized at the 2nd of November 2010. During the stakeholder workshop we tried to
give all people connected to the situation a possibility to participate in the future development
process of their municipality.
The first step back into the real world is a comparison between the problematic situation and
the vision (“What is?”/”What could be?”). A future wanted situation is formed when desired as
well as feasible, reasonable changes are determined. During our casework this step also happened in cooperation with you during the workshop when we formulated plans of actions. A
plan of action is the answer on the question “How to get there?”. The implementation of these
plans of action is depending on you.
In class we learnt different tools, techniques and methods of how to explore the system by the
SSM. Here are the main steps we used during our project work:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Preparing for the visit (e.g. setting meetings with the interviewees; preparing interview
guides)
Conducting the interviews.
Reflecting on our work during the week.
Organizing and analyzing the information by drawing a rich picture and creating a
SWOT analysis. Extraction of key issues of the rich picture.
Creating a vision of the future wanted situation in Tolga based on a seminar on visionary thinking.
Relating key issues to vision by the use of root definitions (CHECKLAND and POULTER,
2006).
Organizing a stakeholder workshop to compare concepts and models, create a common
vision of the municipality of Tolga and to motivate inhabitants to make a change.
Creating action plans.
The Food System in Tolga
The following part is a quite detailed description of the food system in Tolga.
Even though you, the inhabitants of Tolga, know what your municipality is like, we imagine it
to be valuable to get an impression of how we, as outsiders, experienced the situation
Additionally we find that a well-understood current situation is important in order to build up
a future wanted situation.
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General Facts about the Area of Tolga
Picture 3 : Location of Tolga (GULESIDER, 2010)
The municipality of Tolga is situated in Hedmark
county in the centre of Norway, close to the boarder
to Sweden (see Picture 3 : Location of Tolga (GULESIDER, 2010))
The origin of the geological history of the area took
place 400 million years ago (WIKIPEDIA, 2010). The
Caledonian orogeny uplifted the bedrocks and
formed mountains. There are two types of bedrocks:
Metamorphic and igneous rock in the north and the
west and sandstone and metamorphic slate in the
south and east (NGU, 2010). The time has then
shaped the current rounded and smooth aspect of the
mountains, and the valleys through the process of
erosion.
The origin of the soil is more recent. It took place during the late glaciations period in the area.
The mountains are in bare rock. Down in the valleys, soils are mixture of sandy soils, glaciofluvial and more recently fluvial deposits. The glaciofluvial and fluvial deposits allows the
growth of forest and agriculture production.
Glaciers that were present 10.000 years ago shaped the area of Tolga (WIKIPEDIA,
2010).Impacts of the glaciers can be seen in the area by the lakes, the valleys, and the mountains and also in the sandy soil deposits.
This mountain area is characterized by its specific climate conditions: Very long and cold winters lasting sometimes for eight months are almost immediately followed by summers with a
long daylight. On Table 1: Monthly Statistics in Vingelen (METEOROLOGISK INSTITUTT, 2010) we
can see that the average temperature is below 0°C from October to March.
Table 1: Monthly Statistics in Vingelen (METEOROLOGISK INSTITUTT, 2010)
MONTH
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
TEMPERATURE (°C)
max
min
average
24.2
1.1
12.2
24.7
-1.1
14.1
22.8
-3.4
9.7
21.3
-8.0
5.2
12.8
-10.9
1.1
8.0
-31.4
-4.0
0.0
-37.2
-15.2
-1.4
-42.4
-19.0
2.3
-36.0
-13.0
8.3
-12.3
-1.4
8.7
-13.5
-1.3
18.5
-4.1
8.1
PRECIPITATION (mm)
41.1
84.0
81.3
21.1
22.3
23.3
13.1
12.6
26.9
41.1
17.3
30.8
5
Exploration of the Food System in Tolga
Now we will have a closer look at the food system in Tolga.
Picture 4: A Rich Picture of the Food System in Tolga – seen from our Perspective is a visualization of
the food system and an analysis of the situation in Tolga (see Picture 28: A Rich Picture of the Food
System in Tolga – seen from our Perspective in the appendix for an enlarged version of the rich picture). This rich picture has been built on the base of the information we gathered through the
interviews with the different actors during our 1st visit in September in the municipality. It is
conform to step 2 in CHECKLAND’s SSM: The problem situation expressed.
Picture 4: A Rich Picture of the Food System in Tolga – seen from our Perspective
In the description we follow the composition of the rich picture in a natural way: An explanation of the production system in Tolga is followed by a description of processors and distributors before we go in detail into the characteristics of consumers in Tolga. The rich picture is
finished with a fleshed out analysis of the Økoløft project in Tolga.
Producers
We will now have a closer focus on the producers in the area of Tolga.
Environmental Conditions
The environmental conditions in the area of Tolga have a significant impact on agriculture and
the food production in the region (see General Facts about the Area of Tolga). The conditions are
6
characterized by long winters and a short growing season. The high altitude allows a high level
of the sun. The summers are warm and rainy.
Due to the altitude and the cold, farmers in Tolga hardly have to use herbicides and other pesticides. In general farms are run fairly extensively. As the fields are covered by snow for a long
part of the year, it is very hard to grow anything else than grass in the area. This is the main
factor explaining why most of the farms are small-scale structures oriented on animal production.
In the area of Tolga, 25% of the population works in or is connected to the agricultural sector.
However, the scale of the farms does not allow the farmers to live only from their production.
Most of the farmers have part-time job next to the work on the farm. Therefore there is a thick
red arrow in our rich picture pointing from producers to the centre of Tolga. When they sell
their products to processors and distributors, farmers get subsidies from the government as
supplement to the income.
In Picture 5: Detail of our Rich Picture: Production System in Tolga, climatic conditions are
represented by the mountains surrounding the farming production. The “shy sun” represents
the short season of growth in
the area.
Picture 5: Detail of our Rich Picture: Production System in Tolga
Milk and Meat Production
Picture 5 represents the milk
and meat production throughout the season. During spring,
the livestock pastures outside
while farmers prepare their
grassland fields for the harvest
by using artificial fertilizers or
manure (from the previous
winter).
Then during the summer, there
is a tradition to bring the cattle
and the sheep to forest pastures.
Nowadays, there are fewer
farmers who follow this traditional way of farming. There are several reasons for that: The first reason is that someone has
to be with the herd to milk the animals twice a day. These days there are students who do this
job during the summer months. The second reason concerns the logistic for milking the cows.
Some farmers have milking systems in the summer farm, but this is expensive and requires
energy. To bring generators to the summer farms is a possible alternative to hand milking.
While the cows and sheep are grazing in the forest or in the pastures, famers harvest the grasslands twice a year. They use the yields of the grassland as silage or hay during the winter.
Some farmers also grow barley, that will be harvested when still green and that will be added
in the silage food or fed as concentrate during the winter months.
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However, as a consequence of the small space for growing crops, the farmers have to find a
compromise between the production of barley and grass. The major trend we saw is that farmers grow grass, and then have an input of concentrate into the production system.
We also met some farmers who keep the dairy cows all-year long in the barn.
Finally for the winter, the cattle that were outside during the summer season are brought back
to the barn in September.
Chicken Production
The chicken production is new in the area of Tolga. Some farmers such as Nils Eide that the
previous group visiting Tolga met (see yellow circle in Picture 6: Detail of our Rich Picture: Chicken (yellow circle) and Vegetable (green circle) Production in Tolga), have started to run a rather industrialized chicken production system (CABELL et al, 2009). We have not seen such a system
during our visit in Tolga, but more information can be found in the report of the previous students’ group.
Picture 6: Detail of our Rich Picture: Chicken (yellow
circle) and Vegetable (green circle) Production in
Tolga
Vegetable Production
We met one farmer (green circle in
Picture 6) who is producing vegetables.
Due to the harsh conditions, Grim
Jårdar grows mainly root vegetables,
such as potatoes and carrots.
Organic versus Conventional
In the area of Tolga, 24% of the farms are organic; 76% are run conventional. It is important to
notice that the step from conventional production to organic production is minor.
Once again, it’s the climatic conditions that shape the production in this area (see General Facts
about the Area of Tolga). The long and cold winters have serious impacts on the pests’ development. Thus farmers have to use just very few pesticides.
The two main important changes when converting to organic production are to use only animal manure instead of artificial fertilizer and to change over to the use of organic concentrate.
The Influence of the Økoløft Project on the Production System in Tolga
As described above (see The Project „Økoløft i kommuner“), the aim of the Økoløft project is
to increase organic production and consumption.
Most of the farmers we asked had heard about the Økoløft project in Tolga before. But it seems
as if most of the farmers who had converted to organic production had driven this change by
their own will and interest.
Concerning the conventional farmers, it seems that some may be interested to convert, at least
to discuss with advisors or Økoløft members. However, most of those farmers did not have any
contact, and no opportunity for exchange.
8
Processors
Picture 7: Detail of our Rich
Picture: Processing System
in Tolga
Goods produced by
the farmers in the
municipality of Tolga are sold either
directly to the distributors (see Distributors) or to processors, who process
the raw material
before it is sold to
distributors. In our
rich picture we drew arrows that indicate how long the products have to travel to get sold (see
Picture 7: Detail of our Rich Picture: Processing System in Tolga).
The description of the processors system will be described from the closest distance with the
municipality to the longest distance.
On-farm Processing of Milk
First of all there is the possibility to process milk directly on farms.
The milk is processed into cheese or other dairy products in a dairy that is located on the farm
and does not travel at all for further production processes. This is why on-farm processing of
milk is placed close to the producers in our rich picture (see Picture 7).
An example for on-farm processing of milk in Tolga is “Eggen Gardsysteri” (green circle in
Picture 8: Detail of our Rich Picture: On-farm Processing of Milk on Eggen Gardsysteri (green circle),
Processing of Meat in the Municipality of Tolga (red circle) and Processing of Milk and Meat in the Municipality of Røros (blue circle)), a small cheesery that is located on a small-scale organic family
farm in the village of Vingelen. Liv and Ole are a couple that own a dairy farm that is typical
for the area in Tolga and that both work full-time on the farm.
They process the milk themselves on the farm and produce several different types of organic
cheese. The cheese is distributed through “Rørosmat BA” (see Rørosmat BA) and both sold directly in the farm shop and in local shops and restaurants as well as in grocery shops outside of
the region.
According to Liv and
Ole the price they get
for the milk when
processing it on-farm
is higher than the
price
dairies
as
“Rørosmeieriet AS”
or TINE would pay
them.
Picture: On-farm Processing of Milk on Eggen Gardsysteri (green circle), Processing of Meat in the Municipality of Tolga (red
circle) and Processing of Milk and Meat in the Municipality of Røros (blue circle)
9
The conversion of the farm to organic production on Eggen started in the beginning of the
1990´s, the cheesery was built in 2001 – both the farm and the cheesery are established.
Processing of Meat in the Municipality of Tolga
Another possibility for local processing of farm products is the processing of meat by “Vingelen
Kjøtt DA” in the municipality of Tolga. The processing of meat is local and the arrow on the
rich picture is therefore short (see Picture 7).
The meat processor “Vingelen Kjøtt DA” is located in the village of Tolga and is producing
products of lambs and calves from own production as well as meat from game animals. There
is also a small organic production line. The products are distributed by “Rørosmat BA” (see
Rørosmat BA).
Processing of Milk and Meat in the Municipality of Røros
In general most of the products produced in Tolga are processed outside of the municipality.
The processing of organic milk and meat basically takes place in the neighbouring municipality
Røros. The arrow pointing to Røros is longer which indicates that the processing is outside of
the municipality of Tolga.
“Rørosmeieriet AS” is a dairy that is processing all organic milk that is produced in the region
by approximately 35 organic dairy farmers. It is a shareholder company owned by the farmers
that deliver their milk to it. It was also them who established the company in 2000 when the
local Tine dairy was closed down. Nowadays ten employees are working in the factory.
All in all 30 million liters of organic milk are produced in the entire country of Norway, but
only the half of the whole amount is used for organic products. Of these 15 million liters, 4
millions are processed by “Rørosmeieriet AS”.
The products produced by “Rørosmeieriet AS” are organic, have a local origin and a historical
background. An example is the “skjørost”, a sour cheese: Its recipe from the 17th century was
found in the coalmines of Røros where it probably was sold to the workers. It is now produced
again by “Rørosmeieriet AS” with local and organic milk.
In practice trucks from TINE fetch the milk from the organic farmers in the region three times
a week and deliver it directly to “Rørosmeieriet AS” in Røros. “Rørosmeieriet AS” does not
pay the farmers a higher price than TINE, but according to the manager, Trond Lund, the
farmers feel proud to deliver their milk to the local dairy because they have the feeling to support their region.
All eight products of “Rørosmeieriet AS” are distributed in cooperation with “Rørosmat BA”
(see also Picture 10: Detail of our Rich Picture: Distribution System in Tolga).
“Røros Kjøtt AS” is a butchery producing and processing local meat products both organically
and non-organically.
Many of the dairy farmers, we talked to during our stay in Tolga, told us that they deliver their
meat to “Røros Kjøtt AS” and that they are very satisfied both with the travelling distance, the
animal treatment and with the processed products. In addition they feel proud to get their
products processed and distributed locally and that therewith to support the region.
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Processing of Milk and Meat by Big Processing Factories outside of the Region
All the rest of the milk and meat that is not processed locally is sold to the processing factories
TINE, the biggest Norwegian dairy company, and Nortura, a company that is processing the
major part of the meat in Norway.
The arrow pointing to TINE and Nortura is the longest of all of the arrows.
After that the local TINE factory in Tolga was closed down in 2009, conventional milk has
been transported to the centralized factory in Trondheim, about 100km far away from Tolga.
TINE has a policy to fetch the milk from the farmers, and bring it to the dairy factory. Finally
TINE delivers the processed milk to the stores where it will be distributed to the consumers.
Nortura is the biggest Norwegian company processing meat and egg products distributed as
the labels Gilde and Prior (NORTURA, 2010). The closest factory processing meat is in
Rudshøgda, about 260km far away from Tolga. To get slaughtered the animals have to travel
approximately 4h.
Picture 9: Detail of our Rich Picture: Processing Companies TINE (blue circle) and Nortura (red circle)
Distributors
Picture 10: Detail of our Rich Picture: Distribution
System in Tolga
The following is the description of the
distributors in the area of Tolga. The
explanation starts with the distributors that are the farthest from the
consumers (e.g. TINE and Nortura).
Then it finishes with the distributors
that are the closest to the consumers
(e.g. farm shop).
TINE and Nortura
TINE and Nortura have both their own logistics for distributing the products.
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Farmer’s Market
Some farmers sell their products in farmer’s market in Hamar or Trondheim once or twice a
month (see Picture 11: Detail of our Rich Picture: Farmer's Market (green circle), Rørosmat BA (dark
red circle) and farm shop (purple circle)).
Rørosmat BA
“Rørosmat BA” is a company that distributes products to stores or shops, which want to sell
those products.
This company started in 2000 to distribute local products. Its philosophy is based on distributing products from the region. “Rørosmat BA” also works on marketing the products they propose to the final shops.
Many of the local processing actors, such as “Eggen Gardsysteri”, “Kjøtt Vingelen DA”,
Rørosmeieriet AS”, and others, sell their products directly to “Rørosmat BA” (see Picture 11),
which then sells them further to the shops.
In our picture we have represented the COOP store as the final distributing actor. A small display in the COOP store in Tolga is dedicated only for local products. Those products are sold
through “Rørosmat BA”.
Picture 11: Detail of our
Rich Picture: Farmer's
Market (green circle),
Rørosmat BA (dark red
circle) and farm shop
(purple circle)
Farm shop
The shortest way to distribute the products is via farm shops. For example, “Eggen Gardsysteri” has its own farm shop where they sell the products they process. Everything takes place at
the farm itself (see Picture 11: Detail of our Rich Picture: Farmer's Market (green circle), Rørosmat BA
(dark red circle) and farm shop (purple circle)).
Influence of the Økoløft Project on the Distribution System in Tolga
The influence of the Økoløft project on the distribution system in Tolga can be seen in the
COOP store. The manager has built a special store for local products. However it is important
here to mention that the manager has to follow the policy of the head manager of COOP.
Hence, they cannot set the store the way they want, but the way it is required by the COOP
policies.
Consumers
From our point of view the consumers in Tolga are driving forces to make the municipality a
more sustainable place: They are motivated and have had many creative ideas already before
the Økoløft project started in 2008.
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Private Homes
All in all there live around 1700 inhabitants in the municipality of Tolga (STATISTICS NORWAY, 2010).
To get an impression of whether people in Tolga are interested in organic food and whether
they know about the Økoløft project, we ran a small survey in front of the local grocery shop in
order to gather qualitative information. Without being able to prove the results quantitatively
our general idea is that those who are interested in organic products have heard about the
Økoløft project; those who don’t buy organic products don’t know what the Økoløft project is.
On the whole consumers (see Picture 12: Detail of our Rich Picture: Consumers in Tolga: Private
Consumers (light blue circle); School (yellow circle); Kindergarten (deep blue circle); the Municipality Canteen (red circle) and the Elderly House (purple circle)) in Tolga prefer local compared to long travelled food. By buying products produced in the region that for example are labeled with the
label “Rørosmat BA” (see Picture 11), they have the feeling to support their region economically. This is why there is a big, red arrow in our rich picture, indicating the flow of money from
consumers to local farmers in Tolga. Additionally consumers feel proud when consuming
products of their own region. Moreover to consuming local products seems to be safer for them
compared to products they don’t know the origin of.
Picture: Consumers in Tolga:
Private Consumers (light blue
circle); School (yellow circle);
Kindergarten (deep blue circle);
the Municipality Canteen (red
circle) and the Elderly House
(purple circle)
If they have to choose,
generally consumers in
Tolga prefer locally than
organically
produced
food because they consider local products to
be almost organic anyway. Due to the climate agriculture is extensive and farmers usually
don’t use pesticides. After having talked to different kinds of people we think that in general
there is a big lack of information about what organic production is compared to common agricultural practice. This is also why the majority in Tolga doesn’t know any arguments of why to
choose organic rather than conventional products.
School
The school (see Picture 12) in Tolga is working hard to gain a sustainable image in order to
create identification of the pupils with the local region. Independent from the Økoløft project
for one year they are part of a project financed by the state to increase the environmental
awareness among the pupils.
With money from the state the school is able to finance:
• Increasing the environmental awareness by focusing on local food in all grades.
• Working in the organic school garden in the 5th grade.
• Having the possibility to get the hunting diploma in the 9th and 10th grade.
• Developing a sustainable business in the 9th grade.
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•
•
Processing of local food collected in nature in the school kitchen in the 6th, 9th and 10th
grade.
Going for a school trip to national park in the 10th grade.
By this project the school is hoping to raise local identity and to make the students come back
to their home municipality after education in order to build a strong region.
Kindergartens
Both kindergartens (see Picture 12) we visited during our stay in Tolga, Lyngbo Barnehage in
Tolga and Vingelen Barnehage, have for many years been educating the children in a way that
increases the environmental consciousness:
With the children they go on trips in the forest to pick berries and mushrooms. In autumn they
help the farmers to collect the sheep in the forest and visit farms where hunted moose are
brought. In the past Lyngbo Barnehage was also visiting the local slaughterhouse; Vingele
Barnehage is growing salad and herbs in beds on the properties of the kindergarten. Together
with the children meals are prepared by the food collected and grown and bread is baked.
After the Økoløft project was started up in 2008 there has been funding to increase the use of
organic products to 20%. Now the kindergartens buy organic products and compare the prices
with conventional substitutes. Both Lyngbo Barnehage in Tolga and Vingelen Barnehage are
consuming organic milk, some vegetables and flour. Sometimes they also buy cheese processed
by the local cheesery “Eggen Gardsysteri”.
The kindergartens in Tolga also have cooperation with local organic vegetable producers:
Lyngbo Barnehage is working together with Bjørg Killingmo; Vingelen Barnehage is cooperating with Grim Jårdar. With help of the teachers and the farmers the children sow vegetables
and take care of them and harvest them in autumn. Like this, consciousness about food and its
production is created among the children in the kindergarten. The vegetable producers are paid
a fee by the Økoløft project.
Canteen and Elderly House
According to Helge Christie, the canteen (see Picture 12), a small-scale, privately owned canteen cooking for employees of the municipality house, and the elderly house (see Picture 12),
“Tolga Omsorgstun”, are other possibilities to increase the consumption of organic products in
institutions. So far there has been no collaboration between Økoløft and the canteen in the
municipality house or the elderly house.
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The Økoløft Project in Tolga
After a detailed description of the food system in Tolga we will now dive into the Økoløft
project in Tolga.
Picture 13: The Impact of the Økoløft Project on the Municipality of Tolga (Visualized in our Rich Picture)
The municipality of Tolga decided to split the two main goals terminated in the Soria-Moria
explanations into seven sub goals. These sub goals are specifications of the goals to increase
organic production and consumption up to 15% by the year 2020. In 2010 the goals changed
slightly as adaptation to the current situation. Therefore in the following we refer to the current
goals.
The influence of the Økoløft project is visualized in our rich picture as yellow arrows of different strengths. The thicker the arrow is, the better the aim is achieved. Dotted arrows indicate
that the aim still has to be accomplished (see also Picture 13: The Impact of the Økoløft Project on
the Municipality of Tolga (Visualized in our Rich Picture).
Consumption of Organic Products in School and Kindergartens
This chapter refers to both the 1st and the 2nd goal. The reason for describing and analyzing
those two goals together is that they both deal with organic consumption in school and kindergartens. They are represented in Picture 13: The Impact of the Økoløft Project on the Municipality of
Tolga (Visualized in our Rich Picture) by the thick yellow arrows number 1 and 2.
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1. Organic vegetable production and school garden. Pedagogical approach.
2. Organic fruits and vegetables are a real choice and are available in school, the after
school program, kindergarten. Pedagogical approach, teaching plans, curricula.
The aim of both the first and the second goal is to increase the environmental awareness of
children and pupils in schools and kindergartens. The idea is to educate the children who will
create a future change.
First of all the Økoløft project gives some money to kindergartens to buy organic products and
to compare the prices with conventional substitutes. Both Lyngbo Barnehage in Tolga and
Vingelen Barnehage, the two kindergartens we visited during our stay in Tolga, are buying organic milk, some vegetables and flour.
In the school in Tolga there is no organic milk offered. According to the teachers we talked to,
it’s the parents who have to pay for the milk. The school is afraid the parents are not willed to
pay a higher price for organic products – especially as those who are conventional farmers may
feel offended if the school prefers organic milk. They want to avoid teaching their pupils that
organic products are better than conventional – they rather want to explain them the difference
and leave the choice up to them.
For cooking in school and in the kindergartens organic vegetables are used. However, their
proportion compared to conventional is still low.
Additionally, Helge Christie has been giving some lessons in the school to educate children
about environmental issues. This has been done in a way to increase interest in local and organic food among the pupils. These lessons were paid by the funding of the Økoløft project.
A pedagogical garden has been built near the school. This garden is used by the 5thgrade of the
school to learn gardening and harvesting. The products are then further processed in the school
kitchen during class. A resource person taking care of the school garden is paid by the Økoløft
project.
In a similar way the kindergartens in Tolga have cooperation with local organic vegetable producers
It becomes clear that the Økoløft project has been very active to achieve the first two goals.
That the two first goals are realized can also be seen in our rich picture by two thick yellow
arrows pointing from the word Økoløft to school and kindergarten.
But during our trip in Tolga it became clear to us that the expectations of several stakeholders
to the project were higher when it started up than what Økoløft has done so far. This is why
the second goal is not fully achieved.
It is also to mention that the commitment of the school in Tolga, which is part of a national
program financing different activities to support environmental and alternative education, is
independent of the Økoløft project. But it is appreciating the collaboration with Helge Christie.
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10% Increase of Organic Products in Grocery Shops. Increase Understanding of Shorttravelled Food.
The third goal of the Økoløft project is to increase offer and sale of organic food in shops and
increase understanding and importance of local products (see arrow nr. 3 in Picture 13).
The COOP store is the biggest supermarket in Tolga. The trend of consumption can be found
when having a look in the displays: Considering that they have built a special display in the
shop especially for local products, we can say that this goal is on a very good way of achievement. The COOP supermarket itself has strong interests in selling organic and local food.
The manager of COOP gave us the information that the impacts of the Økoløft project can be
seen in the consumption of organic and local products. There is a wish to continue the cooperation with the Økoløft project in the future.
Making the Municipality Canteen to an Organic Canteen
The fourth goal is concerning the increase of organic consumption in public institutions and
the conversion of the canteen to an organic canteen (see arrow nr. 4 in Picture 13). Guri
Nordsveen is the manager of the canteen. The municipality canteen is small; only 5 to 15 customers eat there every day.
The food used for cooking is bought from COOP and is both organic and conventional. For
cooking, usually organic and conventional food is combined. As the budget does not allow her
to buy only organic products, Guri has to make compromises. She is concerned about the importance of buying local food. It is clear for her that by using local products she is supporting
the possibility to build a strong community.
Even though, the canteen is a private institution, Guri is ready to work with the Økoløft steering committee, if they contact her and propose her to have a common goal to reach.
The arrow nr.4 in Picture 13 is dotted, as the goal is not achieved yet.
Promoting the Municipality of Tolga as “Green Municipality” in the Media
The 5thsub goal of the Økoløft project is to present of Tolga in the media as an example of an
organic municipality (see the arrow that goes away from Picture 13). It is hard to evaluate
whether they have successfully achieved this goal or not. What we have found is that the
Økoløft project is frequently mentioned in the local news.
Hence we say that this goal is on its half way to be achieved.
Organic Production
The 6thand 7thgoal are related to the organic production (see arrows nr. 6 and 7 in Picture 13).
Those goals have been set recently and are on their way to be achieved.
6. Make production more sustainable according the climate, special climate-friendly methods - stimulate better agronomy
The sixth goal is about making the production more climate-friendly by using the current tools
for the production in an adapted way. This is focusing on the management of the manure in
the area. Leaching of nitrate and volatilization of green house gasses are challenges that have
to be faced. The municipality is now working on finding climate-friendly alternatives for agriculture.
As it is a process that takes time, this goal will be achieved in the future. Therefore the sixth
arrow is dotted in Picture 13.
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7. Motivate farmers and work on possibilities to make grazing on forest pastures possible
The seventh goal is to find possibilities to use the local resource forest in a better way. The idea
is to feed cattle in summer by using the potential of the forest pastures.
One current project to achieve this aim is to build fences to use the local resource forest in a
better way and to stimulate the farmers to send their animals to the forest pastures.
As the achievement of the 7th goals is still in process, the arrow in Picture 13 is dotted.
Improvement of the Rich Picture
During the workshop we presented our findings to the people that participated in the workshop. Then we asked the people if they thought something was missing in order to improve our
rich picture.
The Picture 14: shows the results.
Picture 14: Comments on our Rich Picture
They came up with some relevant comments for improvement. Some aspects were new; others
were ideas that were very similar to our key issues.
The mayor pointed out that in the picture, the consumers could be drawn even closer to the
processors. Another relevant comment was that this rich picture is a static model that is frozen
in time.
A comment that is similar to our key issues is the fact that consumers may be confused concerning local and organic products. This confusion will be further explained in the key issues
part of the report (see Confusion of Organic and Local Products).
SWOT Analysis of the Food System in Tolga
After a detailed exploration of the food system, and an analysis of the Økoløft project in the
municipality of Tolga, we sum up the description of food system by a SWOT analysis.
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A SWOT- analysis is a tool to analyze the internal strengths and weaknesses compared to the
external opportunities and threats of a situation. It can help to develop or improve situations
by a better understanding of choices (MINDTOOLS, 2010).
Table 2: A SWOT Analysis of the Food System in Tolga
Strengths
Weaknesses
• Extensive farming
• Confusion of organic and local products
• Involvement of some people  initia• Lack of education about food for contive for building a community
sumers
• Pride for local products
•
Conventional farmers partly feel of• Free pastures in the forest
fended
• Traditional farming
• Lack of concentrate (animal fodder)
• Identification of the people with the
• Use of liquid manure (greenhouse efarea
fects)
Opportunities
Threats
• Økoløft project in Norway
• Financial crisis
• Subsidies for traditional farming sys• High oil prices (inputs)
tems
• Regulation of organic products in su• Rørosmat BA
permarkets
• Rørosmeieriet AS
• Norwegian rules and regulations
• Tourists
• Cooperation with UMB
• Trust in Norwegian products
Key Issues
The following key issues were extracted from our rich picture and the SWOT analysis (see Table 2: A SWOT Analysis of the Food System in Tolga) and reflect our understanding of the complex
situation of the food system. Key issues are problems that seem to be important enough for
further investigation.
Lack of Information about what Organic Production is
Having analyzed the situation in Tolga we think that in general there is a big lack of information among the inhabitants about what organic production is.
By a small qualitative survey in front of the local grocery shop we got the impression that there
is a minority consuming organic products whereas the majority mostly buys conventional
products. Those, who hadn’t been buying organic products before the Økoløft project was
started in 2008, still didn’t know any arguments of why to choose organic rather than conventional products.
Confusion of Organic and Local Products
In general consumers in Tolga prefer local compared to long travelled food: They want to support the region economically and feel proud as well as safe when consuming local products.
Many of them consider local products to be almost organic. This is why the consumers trust
locally produced food and why they don’t understand the difference between local conventional products on one hand and organically produced products on the other hand.
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Disappointment of some Stakeholders about the Gap between Words and Acts of the
Økoløft Project
From our perspectives there is a lack of communication between some stakeholders of the food
system and the members of the Økoløft project. To satisfy all the people’s expectations, more
communication is necessary. Communication is also important to avoid that conventional
farmers feel offended by the focus on organic food production in the Økoløft project. Improving communication between all the actors in the community is crucial to make the Økoløft
project succeed also in future.
Visions
After a detailed description and analysis of the food system in Tolga with its key issues, in the
following we present the results of the second goal formulated in the workshop: Providing concrete ideas for the future.
During the last year’s workshop many relevant ideas came up. During our workshop, “From
Vision to Action”, we build on the output from last year’s vision that we gathered into two
main ideas:
Cooperation and strengthening community
Which implies the cooperation between farmers, stakeholders but also cooperation between
municipalities.
Sustainable food and alternative revenues
Which suggest for example more local food, green care, biogas plant, agro tourism, etc.
However, from what we could read in the previous report, these ideas were quite wide and no
action plans were very thought about.
What we wanted to achieve in the second part of the
workshop was to involve the participants into a reflection on this frame and to come up with concrete ideas in
order to reach this two main objectives.
We insisted on the fact that it was very important not to
get preoccupied with obstacles and how to reach these
ideas.
After personal reflection, they gathered in small group
to talk about their ideas. To finish, they had to write
each idea on a piece of paper, and stick it on the wall
under one or the other main goal while explaining it
(see Picture 15: The mayor is sharing a vision with the participants).
Picture 15: The mayor is sharing a
vision with the participants
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Adapted Tolga’s Visions that derived from the Workshop hold on the 2nd of November,
2010
Agrotourism
In the future, the people of Tolga want to have more tourists visiting the area. They wish to
have people from Norway, as well as other place in the world to come, visit and even stay in
Tolga for some time.
Related to this vision, the people of Tolga also had a vision of having botanical trips in the
mountains, a “living museum” presenting the richness of this area.
Our idea was additionally that former summer farms no longer in use could be turned into cabins where tourists could enjoy their stay in a traditional and rustic style.
Rørosfé
Røroskua or STN (Sidet Trønderfe og Nordlandsfe) is a local dual-purpose cow breed with
tender meat and milk that is extraordinary well suitable for cheese making. These characteristics are due to the genetic resources of the cow breed (RØROSKUA SA, 2010).
In future – according to the vision of the people in Tolga – Røroskua is a well-known and popular breed. The products are highly demanded and merchandized through a well-known brand.
Cheese and meat produced by Røroskua are famous for being high quality products.
(RØROSKUA SA, 2010)
The cooperation Røroskua SA with Bjørn Huseklepp and Lars Sankar-Øyan as leaders is
working hard to achieve this aim and is getting help from the newspaper for Trønderfe og Norlandsfe and the friends of Røroskua (RØROSKUA SA, 2010).
In future there will be calves from the breed Røroskua fed up on different farms in the area.
The calves are sold to the farms from farmers that have husbandry of the breed but not enough
space or fodder to feed up all the calves. By feeding up the calves until they are approximately
2 years old, meat with high quality characteristics is produced. The meat can be marketed to
gourmet restaurants in the cities of Trondheim as well as Oslo that demand raw materials of
high quality. Another possibility is to sell the meat through the umbrella organization “Rørosmat BA”
By the increasing popularity of the local breed Røroskua, the identity of both farmers and Tolganer in the region is created. People will be proud that they come from the region with the
well-known race Røroskua.
Workshops and Open House
The idea of developing workshops and open days on the farms comes from a Dutch farmer
who recently settled in Tolga. Farms interested in this activity will be open for the public during one day or one weekend. Interested people are free to visit the farm and discuss with the
farmer about his production. Also workshops can be organized on several thematic related to
the farm in order to provide interesting, useful and educative activity for external people. The
social aspect in this approach is very important, both, for the farmers and the guest that will be
offered a nice and interesting visit.
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On the local level, this kind of event will increase the strength of the community. In Tolga, this
can be an interesting advantage to help to reduce the confusion between organic and local agriculture. On a national level, it can attract tourists and reduce the gap between producers and
consumers by educating people. It will also contribute to advertise “Rørosmat BA” products.
Forum for Kitchen Inspiration
This vision comes from our key client Helge Christie. The main idea of this vision is to gather
people in a forum in order to increase the consumption of organic food. It will stimulate them
to come up with more ideas and inspirations. Kindergartens, school, the COOP manager, the
manager of Elderly House and some farmers will meet once or twice a year. They will cook
together and have conversations about the influence of eating organic food on heath or environment, etc. The idea is to help the people to promote organic food consumption in their departments and to raise awareness about organic food of the people around them.
Processing Cooperative
This is an adapted vision from what came up from the workshop and our visionary session in
class.
Nowadays, small-scale farms are hardly viable from an economic point of view. Globalization
creates unfair competition between farmers all over the world. Specialization of agriculture
puts the farmers into a difficult situation where they are dependent on external factors; they do
control neither the prices of the inputs nor the prices of their production.
During our first stay in Tolga, we learned that the sizes of the farms are mostly small and in
many cases not economically viable. Many farmers have to rely on an external income, from
their own part time job or from a job of another member of the family.
Reducing the food chain by processing and selling directly is a possibility for small farms to be
profitable. Therefore, farmers have to accumulate concurrently 2 or 3 jobs (producers, processors and sellers); this does not contribute to reduce the amount of work on the farm. The viability of the farm and spare time for social activities are two important factors that make farming
an attractive opportunity for young people.
In our vision the processing cooperative contains:
Organic dairy and cheese dairy
Milk is a product that is available in large quantity in Tolga. Therefore, supplying the local
market is not enough to make the shared dairy profitable. A valuable way would be to split up
the dairy into two dimensions:
• A large-scale production for specific products in order to reach the national market via
Rørosmat. For example ice cream, “Gouda” or “brown cheese” are interesting for
many reasons. Those products have a good conservation, can be stocked or refined in
an older cheese, transform large quantities of milk in a smaller volume and in a valuable
product. Also there is a high demand on the market and their waste can be valued into
pork meat.
• A small-scale production with a large diversity of products in order to reach the local
market with direct selling. For example milk, butter, cream, larger diversity of cheese.
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Organic butchery
Meat is, like milk, available in such high quantities that they have to export. Therefore, this
processing structure will be oriented in the same way as the dairy. This means that it can
supply the local market and that the exceeded products should reach to national product via
“Rørosmat BA”.
Storage room for organic vegetables
This structure will be used to promote organic vegetable production in Tolga. The idea is to
provide vegetables that can be produced and conserved all year round (sweets, onions, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, etc.) to the local market with direct selling.
Organic bakery
The idea of creating such a structure is to supply the local market with organic bread directly
sold to the consumer. For climatic reasons, cereal production is not developed in Tolga. Therefore the bakery won't be useful for the local farmers, but it will bring facilities for the consumers to access organic bread. The flour will be bought up from other places but processed in Tolga. That will increase the dynamic of the municipality and create jobs.
Our Visions that derived from a Seminar on Visionary Thinking
In the following we will present our future vision of the municipality of Tolga. The ideas for
the vision presented derived from a seminar on visionary thinking that we had in class between
the 1st and the 2nd case visit. We were guided to imagine the food system of Tolga in the year of
2020. The purpose was to create original ideas without blocking them by obstacles and constraints.
The goal of the seminar was that it could be the visions that sounded the most unrealistic that
could prove to be very attractive for the future development.
After we had built up ideas individually we collected them in the group to further develop the
group vision that will be presented beneath:
Newsletter
In 2020 in Tolga, there will be a newsletter that will be offered in the municipality. The purpose of the newsletter is mainly to build relationships and to strengthen links between the
people in the municipality.
In this newsletter, information can be found about what is happening in Tolga, but also about
what is happening in Norway, or even all around the world.
Information concerning agriculture and agronomic knowledge could also be found. In order to
help reaching the goals of the Økoløft project, advice concerning organic agriculture and the
converting process should be explained in the newsletter.
Another part will be information from outside the municipality, such as new policies from the
government or important national companies (for instance TINE) concerning agricultural production.
The content can also deal with the local events, such as the initiatives of people for new
projects.
Successful innovative projects in Norway or elsewhere can be presented in the newsletter, in
order to bring inspiration among the people in the community.
The newsletter should be distributed in the main buildings in the municipality (Municipality
House, COOP, Tolga School).
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Festival
In our vision of 2020 we also imagine a food festival to be in Tolga.
This food festival would focus only on the local and organic food produced and processed in
the region. The goal of the festival is to gather the inhabitants of Tolga and to allow the local
farmers to present their production and the way they work in order to increase the customers’
awareness about the food.
A food festival is the perfect occasion for the customers and the farmers to interact with each
other, share experiences and knowledge. It would give the farmers a better idea of the customer’s expectation and it would increase the trust of the customers in their local producers.
Moreover, it would also be an opportunity for farmers to talk to each other and share experience in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
The idea is that every farmer of the region participates in showing his products (i.e. milk,
cheese, vegetables, etc.), some of his machines and tools and possibly a few animals.
The participation of “Rørosmat BA” and other local distributors in the festival would be also
very profitable for the customers.
Moreover, tourist attraction seems very important for the region to increase the local notoriety
and the consumption of local products. If the tourists taste, appreciate and purchase local
products they will tend to come back to buy these special products and advise their friends to
try them.
Mobile Shop
Currently most of the organic farmers sell their products through the trademark “Rørosmat
BA”. So far the “Rørosmat BA” products can be found all over Norway, but usually just a few
products are part of the assortment of single shops. These products, offered in the grocery
shops are processed, either on the farm or by “Rørosmeieriet AS” or “Røros Kjøtt AS”. Presently local products are partly sold through the local COOP shop in Tolga, thanks to the
Økoløft project. But so far there are no distribution channels for unprocessed organic products
such as vegetables, milk and meat.
In our vision in 2020 there will be a mobile shop selling local unprocessed products as well as
the products processed in the processing cooperative described in the previous paragraph. It
will also function as a shop of the local trademark “Rørosmat BA”. All the products sold with
this label will be sold thanks to the truck.
The mobile shop is a small truck with shelves and cooling equipment as well as a cash point in
the back. There will be one person running the shop, depending on the size and there will also
be employees that drive the truck and work as sales assistants. But first of all it will be the
farmers being part of the processing cooperation that will work as drivers and sales assistants.
In cooperation with 20 members, each is working just once a month – it is possible to reduce
the costs of the shop and to increase the contact between the farmers and the consumers.
There are two reasons for why the shop will be mobile: First of all it is cheaper to once invest in a
car than to regularly pay rent for a shop. Secondly with a mobile shop it is easier to reach consumers than if they have to travel to the shop.
In our vision the truck will be in each village of Tolga (Tolga centre, Vingelen and Hodalen)
during two days a week. It will for instance be in Hodalen every Wednesday and Saturday and
will each time be located at the same public place.
The schedule of where and when the truck will be will be published both in the newsletter and
at the blackboard in the municipality house.
The newsletter will be distributed in the mobile shop.
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The mobile shop is a possibility for the inhabitants of Tolga to buy local and organically produced food. Thanks to the truck, the awareness of the people about local food production will
be increased. Once they will have started to be customers of the mobile shop they will also ask
for organic products in public institutions. The truck will contribute to strengthen the local
identity of the people in Tolga and make them proud of their region!
Biogas Plant
Biogas is a combustible gas, which comes from the anaerobic fermentation of organic matter.
Building a biogas plant will not only help Tolga to deal with the key issue of manure management, but it will also create outputs such as electricity, heat and fertilizer. It can be both small
scale and big scale.
On a small scale, neighbouring famers could build a small biogas plant together, and benefit
from its output themselves.
On a large scale, each village can build one big biogas plant, and gather the materials from local farms, process it more efficiently, and then use the outputs both public and private.
After the process of anaerobic fermentation in the biogas plant, the input of liquid manure,
wood debris, organic waste with water can be transferred into the output of CH4, which can be
a combustible for electricity and heat. The residue and miasma liquid can be used as an organic fertilizer, fodder and even as a natural insect agent. All in all, establishing a biogas plant will
not only help to reach the goal of environmental friendly production, but also to succeed in
aspects of energy independence.
How to solve the Key Issues
These visions that may at least partly seem non-feasible or even utopistic to you we created
after the extraction of key issues.
In this paragraph we want to explain you the first step of how we connected the visionary ideas
to the reality in Tolga:
We created a series of theoretical models, which are inspired by so called root definitions that
correspond to step 3 of CHECKLAND’s SSM. Their aim is to describe clear statements of activities that might take place in a situation that could be improved. (BRELAND, 2010)
This means, as initial point we took the key issues, which we had determined beforehand and
connected them to both feasible and utopistic means by which they could be solved. Means are
either visions or actions that already take place in Tolga (e.g. advertising organic products in
shop). Those just have to be enhanced. In the pictures the visions that raised at the Workshop
are highlighted as yellow boxes. The means can also be seen as possibilities for the Økoløft
project to improve the current situation.
For the first key issue “Lack of information about what organic production is” we formulated
the following series of possibilities of how to handle this subject.
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Picture 16: Series of Possibilities of how to handle the Key Issue "Lack of information about what organic production is"
For the second key issue “Confusion of organic and local products” we formulated the following model:
Picture 17: Series of Possibilities of how to handle the Key Issue "Confusion of organic and local products”
26
For the third key issue “Disappointment of some stakeholders about the gap between words
and acts of the Økoløft project” we formulated the following model that should help you to
deal with that topic:
Picture 18: Series of Possibilities of how to handle the Key Issue "Disappointment of some stakeholders about the gap between
words and acts of the Økoløft project"
As next step we picked those visions that seemed to be feasible and relevant and created plans
of actions on their basis. How the possibilities can be applied is described in the chapter Action
Plans.
Action Plans
The last aim of the workshop was to enable you to make a change. Hence you created action
plans out of feasible visions. In order to choose them we classified the ideas into three categories: Short-term, Long-Term and Utopistic.
No vision was categorized in the utopistic section. Everything seems to be possible in Tolga!
We then asked the participants to pick ideas,
to gather in small group and to design a model
in order to build an action plan. All the groups
had little pieces of papers where they had to
write each step of how to reach this idea and
to order them chronologically. In the same
way as for the previous part, they had to share
and discuss their action plans with the entire
group (see Picture 19: Building Together an Action Plan).
Picture 19: Building Together an Action Plan
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Agrotourism
What
The people of Tolga would like to have more tourists visiting the area. Different means could
be thought about to realize this vision.
Table 3: Advantages and Disadvantages of Agrotourism
Advantages
Disadvantages
• Generating more income
• Need good advertising
• Reinforcing local identity and pride
• Need involvement of the people of
Tolga and the surrounding area
• Showing and preserving a special
environment, as well as old tradi• Need developing or transforming
tion (e.g. Seters, flora of the mouninfrastructure for the tourists (e.g.
tains)
Tourist center, Hotel, Seters)
Why
Having more tourists may generate more income in the community. The people of Tolga will
be then more proud of what they are doing, and thus may have more amazing initiatives for
developing the community.
How
During the final part of the workshop, the people who worked on the vision of developing agro
tourism in Tolga set the following action plan to make it possible. In the Picture 20: Action Tree
Agrotourism, we can see that they pointed out a first necessity that is to have time. Then the
next steps are organization, the creation of a committee and knowledge.
In order to “spread the word” and to make people come and visit Tolga there is a need for
marketing, and facilities for tourists.
The last steps needed for making the agrotourism a reality in Tolga are – according to the
people of the municipality – getting facilities for the tourists, such as a tourist center, a calendar
of event (that could be spread by the newsletter, see Newsletter), and places to stay (e.g. cabins
in the summer farms, space for a camping place or/and a festival). We can say that if all those
actions are taken, Tolga may be known in all Norway.
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Picture 20: Action Tree Agrotourism
Rørosfe
What
Calves of the local breed Røroskua are fed up to produce local meat products of high quality.
In summer the calves are grazing in the forest pastures, in winter they are in the barns of different farms in the area where they are given winter fodder.
Why
Meat products of high quality are produced in the area – hence local identity is created and the
area is economically supported.
Since the calves are grazing in the forest in summer the local resource is used reasonably. At
the same time traditional farming systems are kept alive which is also contributing to the creation of local identity.
Food is produced in a sustainable way.
How
To make this vision real, different actions have to take place at the same time. See also Picture
21: Action Tree Rørosfé.
Firstly a market for high quality products has to be created.
Therefore laws and regulations have to be changed for example to be able to combine organic
and conventional production systems. Also meat quality should be dignified by a higher price
for high quality products. If the meat of Røroskua was paid for its quality, it would be econom29
ically reliable to produce it. SEUROP is a method that is used in Europe for the categorization
of meat quality. Then the market has to be educated in that way that quality products are consumed. Politics could be a successful instrument to achieve this aim. If people appreciate high
quality products they are also more likely to pay higher prices.
Meanwhile production both in summer and winter has to be insured.
To feed up the calves in summer, appropriate areas of land have to be rented as pastureland.
While high quality fodder has to be insured, at the same time public places can be used in order to assure attention of tourists and residents. In the forest, fences have to be built to avoid
that the animals destroy the fields close to the pastures.
In winter, preferably organic farmers have to lend themselves to produce extra silage for the
animals. In addition to the winter forage, accommodation has to be guaranteed – if possible
without any extra costs.
When all these actions are taken, it is possible to feed up Rørosfe calves to produce high quality products and to create local identity.
Picture 21: Action Tree Rørosfé
Workshops and Open Houses
What
The open farm week is an idea based on the open house and workshop vision. During this
week, the farms involved in this project will be open for the public. Those farmers will be encouraged to run activities and workshops on topics related to the farm. The future food festival
in Tolga can be organized during this week.
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Why
Several aims can be pointed out from this event:
• Increasing the strength in the community
• Reducing the gap between the producers and the consumers
• Educating the consumers
• Advertising the products of the area
• Increasing agro-tourism
How
Workshops and open-houses can be organized by each farmer individually. Therefore, farmers
need to decide on a date, promote and advertise the event and organize workshops. However,
the influence of such individual events will be limited on a local level and will not contribute to
develop the agro-tourism in the area. The organization time for the farmer and the low impact
it can have may reduce the interest in such events, both for the farmer and the potential guests.
Therefore, creating a platform to collect interested farms in the municipality and to regroup all
the activities in one intensive week seems to be more efficient. It will create a big event attractive for the tourists and easier to promote. This platform will be lead by a committee in order
to collect all the ideas of workshops that the interested farmers want to develop, to build up a
schedule or program and to advertize the events on a national level.
Picture 22: Action Tree for Open Farm Days
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Processing Cooperative
What
The agricultural production in Tolga is mainly about milk and meat. Therefore, the processing
cooperative will be based on a dairy and a slaughter house. However, processed products, such
as bread, are not excluded. This organization will be owned by the farmer association and will
process organic products.
Table 4: Advantages and Disadvantages of Processing Cooperative
Advantages
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Better value for the production
Bringing viability to small farms
Short chain, from farm to fork
Short travel food
Increasing the local identity
Creating new jobs and opportunities
Shared structure reduces the individual
investments
Disadvantages
•
•
•
•
Competition with local processors
(“Rørosmeiriet AS”, “Røros Kjøtt
DA” and “Vingelen Kjøtt DA”)
Need for expensive infrastructure:
building, equipment, trucks
Need to hire skilled employees
Need for organized committee for the
complex management of the structure
Why
The vision to group farmers in a shared processing organization should provide a better price
for the production, share the investment on infrastructures (this will increase the viability of the
farms) and also reduce the work time necessary compared to if each farmer had to process their
own production individually.
The aims of the local cooperative for processing are:
• Creating enough income for the farmers.
• Making the small-scale farms economically viable.
• Encouraging conventional farmers to convert to organic.
• Supplying the local market with a large diversity of local organic food.
• Increasing the community dynamic of the municipality.
• Creating jobs and opportunities.
• Providing facilities for the consumers.
Focusing on the advantages of this vision sounds idealistic, nevertheless it contains many obstacles. Farmers have to be involved and creative to start a cooperative. Our individualistic
society makes investing and working together a huge challenge. Group decision making is a
source of conflict that threats the wellness of a collective structure.
In Tolga, the competition with local processors can be seen as a competition between the good
initiatives. For example, organic dairy farms in Tolga feel proud to deliver their milk to
“Rørosmeiriet AS”. But the idea in this vision is to go further than these existing organizations
(“Rørosmeiriet AS”, “Røros Kjøtt DA” and “Vingelen Kjøtt DA”). These ones provide a
strong local identity but are not different from conventional processors. For example, “Rørosmeiriet AS” buys organic milk from TINE. Thus, organic dairy farmers in Tolga do not get a
better price for their organic milk even if it goes to “Rørosmeiriet AS”. The processing cooperative should cut out intermediates and add additional value to the products.
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How
The starting point to create a processing cooperative is to write down a concrete project with
clear goals in order to gather interested farmers. Then a business plan has to be prepared carefully in order to evaluate the investments and to find the necessary capital. Work organization
with intern rules need to be developed before starting with the production. Final steps are advertising and marketing of the goods produced in order to be known by the consumers.
Picture 23: Action Tree for Having a Local Cooperative
Newsletter
What
A newsletter can be offered to the people in Tolga once every second month. The content of
the newsletter will be about the Økoløft project in Tolga, but also about organic production,
agronomic topics and events that will happen in the municipality.
Table 5: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Newsletter
Advantages
Disadvantages
• Strengthening the community
• Need organization
• Offering information
• Time for collecting the articles and
editing the newsletter
• Increasing consciousness
• Increasing communication among
the farmers
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•
•
Helping the farmers to convert by
promoting organic agriculture
Increasing communication between
Tolga and UMB University
Why
There are many reasons for launching a newsletter in Tolga. The main reasons are to increase
and reinforce the communication within the municipality, in order to create a feeling of being
united. If communication is improved, people are thus more conscious and concerned about
their municipality.
Much information, personal experience from organic farmer, suggestions or advice about converting to organic agriculture can be found in the newsletter. This may help more farmers to
convert into organic production.
How
The Picture 24: Action Tree Newsletter summarizes the mandatory steps for making the visions of
a newsletter possible. We think that one person should be the committee leader. This means
that this person will be responsible for writing, editing and publishing the newsletter. A schedule of the publishing of the newsletter has to be set up in the beginning of the project. Then
some members of the municipality or members of the Økoløft project as well as any interested
person in the municipality could write articles. The committee needs to find topics and pictures
to write down in the newsletter.
The last steps are the edition and distribution of the newsletter. Then, infrastructure is needed,
such as printers, but we think that those can easily be found in the municipality house. The
committee has to find a way to distribute the newsletter. We have been thinking of having
boxes near the main doors of the public buildings such as the municipality house, or building
where many people goes trough such as COOP.
Maybe some agreement with the post could be found in order to distribute the newsletter in the
surrounding areas.
When all these steps will be completed, then the newsletter will spread precious information
among the people.
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Picture 24: Action Tree Newsletter
Festival
What
The food festival is a festival organized in Tolga around the theme of local and organic food.
It will be the chance to gather the inhabitants of Tolga municipality as well as tourists in a festive atmosphere.
Table 6: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Festival
Advantages
Disadvantages
• Interaction with different local
• Investment and preparation from
stakeholders
the municipality
• Sharing a good moment
• Personal involvement of the farmers
• Improving relationships between
farmers and customers
• Increasing pride and local identity
Why
The main purpose of the food festival is to increase the awareness and knowledge of the consumers about local and organic food. The aim of the food festival is also to increase the local
identity and pride by strengthening the bounds within the municipality of Tolga.
35
Moreover, this kind of event in the region will attract tourists in Tolga municipality and will
promote local and organic products.
How
The setting up of this festival will need some investment from Tolga municipality and it is important to realize that this kind of event cannot work if there is just one person working on it.
Thus, the idea risen up during the workshop was to set up a group of leaders who would be
responsible for the organization of the festival.
The second step of this plan will be for this group of leaders to think about the logistic that will
need to be available for the festival. For example, installing different stands for all the people
who want to present their products, preparing a special rest area for the animals, preparing the
music equipment (speakers, micro), setting up a scene for a conference or a debate concerning
food issues.
In the same time, a precise program will have to be thought of in order to decide what will
happen during the festival and to be able to prepare the logistic.
During the workshop, it was also proposed to involve the media in the process in order to have
a greater impact of this festival. In the first place, the media would be used as an advantage to
promote the event beforehand and encouraging more tourists to participate to the festival. In
the second place it will also be the chance to make a good publicity of the municipality of Tolga as a place with a rich cultural life, which could in the future contribute to increase the numbers of tourists in the region.
Then another suggestion was to have a kitchen at disposal for preparing the dishes and samples
to be tasted. The question that still remains is where this kitchen will be?
After having organized all this, we thought that it was very important to try to sign up contracts with producers in order to have as much participants as possible to the festival that will
present a diversity of local products.
People will then have the opportunity to taste different products from farmers and local processors and learn about its origin, production and transformation. Once they have tasted the
product during the festival, if they enjoyed it, they will buy it in the shops because they will
also associate the products with a pleasant moment.
Then, a place and a time for the festival will have to be decided. It will be important to really
think this through because it will sort of shape and condition the outcome of the event. Ideally
this festival would be organized several times a year in order to have a positive impact on the
community and to attract tourists.
The final step of this action plan will be to think about different activities that could be organized.
For instance, we can think of:
• Cheese making workshop
• Milking workshop
• Cow and sheep competition show
• Conferences about organic agriculture
• Preparation of a local (or/and organic) meal cooked and share with everyone and more
All these ideas will have to be adapted and improved according the means and the feasibility.
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Ideally a food festival would be organized several times a year in order to have a positive impact on the community and to attract more tourists.
Picture 25: Action Tree Food Festival
Mobile Shop
What
The mobile shop is a small truck that is providing consumers facilities to purchase local and
organically produced products. The truck will be a possibility for average consumers to buy
locally produced vegetables and potatoes, which so far can just be bought by kindergartens and
the school. An investment in a cooling truck would even make it possible to sell dairy and
meat products such as cheese by “Eggen Gardsysteri” and products of the local butcher “Kjøtt
Vingelen DA”.
Once the project is launched and running well it is also a possibility to cooperate with
“Rørosmat BA” and to sell products of this brand in the mobile shop.
Table 7: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Mobil Shop
Advantages
Disadvantages
• Providing facilities for consumers to
• Investment in truck (preferably with
buy local products
cooling equipment)
• Providing facilities for producers to
• Time-effort: Organization among
37
•
•
•
•
sell their products
Better price for the farmers by direct
selling (profit is not shared with distributors and processors)
Closer link between consumers and
producers
As cooperative between farmers:
time-efficiency
Creation of identity and pride
among both consumers and producers
•
•
the farmers to build a cooperative
Full-time employee
Competition with COOP supermarket that is currently selling
some local products
Why
The goals of the mobile shop are manifold:
First of all the truck will offer the consumers the possibility to purchase local and organically
produced food. It will strengthen the local economy and create pride among the inhabitants of
Tolga for their area and agriculture.
But the farmers will also derive advantage from selling products directly to the consumers.
They will be paid a better price for the products, as they won’t have to share the profit with
processors and distributors
The truck will also strengthen local infrastructure and offer the inhabitants of Tolga the possibility to do the shopping locally.
How
In the first place, interested farmers have to be gathered to make this project possible (see Picture 26: Action Tree Mobile Shop). A round table could be organized where there would be a platform for farmers to discuss the idea of a mobile shop and its organization. Public places where
the shop can park to sell the goods in the cities of Tolga, Vingelen and Hodalen have to be determined.
As the project is dependent on the investment in a truck, then money has to be acquired. We
suggest applying for funding of the program “innovasjon Norge” that is offering money for
private people or companies that are about to establish an innovative and original business
(INNOVASJON NORGE, 2010).
The investment in the truck should be well considered: A simple truck could be less costly; a
more advanced truck with cooling equipment offers the possibility to sell dairy and meat products next to vegetables and potatoes. It may be more economically viable to offer a broad array
of products, which attracts a larger amount of customers. It could be useful to run a survey
amongst the inhabitants of Tolga in advance and to calculate the viability of the two different
possibilities.
After the investment in the truck, a schedule has to be agreed. It will determine when each
farmer can be on duty to drive the mobile shop and to work as a sale assistant.
Diversity in the truck has to be insured by offering as many different products as possible.
An efficient driving plan could make it possible to collect goods of different farmers who are
members in the cooperative on the way to the public place where the mobile shop is opened.
Another possibility is that the farmers, who sell their products through the mobile shop, deliver
the goods to the place where the shop is selling goods to the customers.
The schedule of where the shop is selling and at which days during the week, is published in
the newsletter.
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As soon as the mobile shop is established and running well a full-time worker can be hired.
Also a storage room could be rented where farmers deliver their commodities before they are
sold in the shop.
Eventually the mobile shop could get in contact with “Rørosmat BA” and cooperate with the
initiative to sell goods of this trademark.
Picture 26: Action Tree Mobile Shop
Biogas plant
What
Biogas could be an interesting possibility to improve manure management and produce alternative energy.
Table 8: Advantages and Disadvantages of a Biogas plant
Advantages
Disadvantages
• Environmental friendly way to pro• Huge upfront investment
duce energy
• Technical issues caused by low
• Good management of liquid matemperature
nure
• Output of electricity, heat and fertilizer etc
• Full use of forest resources and Organic waste
39
Why
The main purpose of the biogas plant is to solve the pollution problems of liquid manure and
benefit from the output.
How
As shown in Picture 27: Diagram of a Biogas Plant, biogas plants can be divided into 3 parts: The
inputs, the equipment and the outputs.
The inputs include:
• Wood debris: There are a large number of forest resources in Tolga. As a result of this,
the wood debris can be both bought from the sawmill and cut in the forest.
• Manure: Not only liquid manure can be used in the process of fermentation, but also
chicken manure and human excrement.
• Organic waste: In small-scale, farmers can use their own organic waste; in large-scale
they can easily find the organic waste in the waste disposal center.
• Knowledge: This means the knowledge of establishing a biogas plant. You can gather
this knowledge both from books and get contact with the researchers in universities. It is
also possible to get in touch with some company that deals with this business.
• Funding: Apply both to “innovasjon Norge” and the government, maybe you can get
subsidies and supports from them (INNOVASJON NORGE, 2010).
Then, based on the special climate in Tolga, in order to make it work well there is some
equipment that can be attached to the biogas plant. The technical issue mentioned before is
about fermentation temperature. The best temperature for fermentation is between 20℃ and
40℃. But, Tolga has such a long winter and a low annual average temperature that, in order
to run it well, we can choose a low-temperature fermentation bacteria. This kind of bacteria
can adapt to low temperatures and work better than normal ones. Secondly, a cover for the
biogas tank made of heat insulator will also help to keep the optimum fermentation temperature. Thirdly, a solar heating system can also be added into the biogas plant. This kind of system use solar energy to heat the water, and then the water will be used to increase and maintain the fermentation temperature in the biogas tank (DOCIN, 2010).
The outputs include:
• CH4: Methane is the main component of biogas. We can get heat and electricity from
burning it.
The electricity can be used form lighting or something else. The heat can be used for
warming up houses or barns during the winter or for cooking. If we have too much biogas in summer, we can store it in another tank, and then use it in winter when the fermentation is not going so well. The output of burning CH4 is CO2 and H2O. The CO2
can be captured by special equipment, and then used as an air fertilizer in the greenhouse which can enhance photosynthesis of plant and increase the production (DOCIN,
2010).
• Residue and Miasma liquid: The residue and miasma liquid can be used as a highquality organic fertilizer and the nutrient carried in them can be absorbed rapidly by the
plants. After treatment, these can also be used as fodder to feed the fish, pigs and cows.
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Picture 27: Diagram of a Biogas Plant (Baidu 2010)
41
Conclusion
During our first semester at UMB, we had to opportunity to experience how it is like to be an
“agroecologist”. “Agroecologists” are facilitators of change. However, change is only possible
if many other people are willing to move towards it.
The comparison to other students groups who have had the same experience as us in different
places of Norway allows us to tell you that we were amazed by the area of Tolga for different
reasons:
The fact that one quarter of the agriculture in your place is organic is something that rarely
exists in the rest of Norway. Besides you are 10% above the goal of the Økoløft project to reach
15% of organic production.
We were also very impressed by what small companies, such as “Rørosmeiriet AS” or “Eggen
Gardsysteri” are doing in the area.
What we found the most inspiring, both during our two visits and during the workshop, is the
pride people feel for their place. We guess that many of the local initiatives are consequences of
the fact that people are proud to be a Tolganer.
The only advice we would suggest you is to keep on improving the communication. We suggest you some ideas in this report, but as we have seen during the workshop, you have already
many dreams for strengthening Tolga.
Moreover, we have experienced that everything seems to be possible in Tolga. We think that
you should not be afraid of being different from the rest of Norway. Thus, we think that the
dream of having an agriculture that is only organic may be possible in your place, as well as
any other initiatives that could make Tolga an even better place than it is now.
A bright future is in your hands!
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References
Internet references
Baidu: Diagram of a biogas plant:
<http://baike.baidu.com/view/43456.htm>, visited 2010-11-20
Docin: Biogas plant:
<http://www.docin.com/p-3280819.html>, visited 2010-11-20
Docin: Biogas plant:
<http://www.docin.com/p-9808990.html>, visited 2010-11-20
Innovasjon Norge: Stipend til etablere
<http://www.innovasjonnorge.no/Satsinger/Ny-ide-eller-starte-bedrift/>, visited 2010-10-26
Landbruks og Matdepartementet: Økoløft in Norway:
<http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/lmd/aktuelt/nyheter/2007/sept-07/okologisk-20millioner-til-okoloft-i-kom.html?id=480148>, visited 2010-09-27
MindTools: Using the TOWS matrix.
<http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_89.htm>, visited 2010-09-27
NGU: Geology of Norway:
<http://www.ngu.no/en-gb/hm/Maps-and-data/>, visited 2010-09-27
Røroskua SA:
<http://roroskua.no/>, visited 2010-11-13
Statistics Norway: Figures on Tolga municipality:
<http://www.ssb.no/english/municipalities/0436>, visited 2010-09-27
Wikipedia: Caledonian orogeny:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_orogeny>, visited 2010-09-27
Wikipedia: Latest glaciations:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period>, visited 2010-09-27
YR.NO: Weather in Tolga:
<http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Hedmark/Tolga/Tolga/statistics.html>, visited 2010-0927
Articles and Reports
BRELAND, T.A. (2010): Soft System Methodology Workshop. Agroecology master’s courses
(PAE302 and 303), 2010-10-19
43
CHECKLAND, P., POULTER J. (2006): Learning for Action: A short definitive account of
Soft Systems Methodology and its use for practitioners, teachers and students. John Wiley and Sons
Ltd., West Sussex. pp.30
WILSON, K., MORREN G.E.B. Jr. (1990): An introduction to systems thinking and practice. In: Systems Approaches For Improvement in Agriculture and Resource Management. McMillan. 67 - 115.
CABELL et al (2009): An exploration of Nils Eide Farm. Agroecology course 2009, Norwegian University of Life Science, Ås.
44
Appendix
Picture 28: A Rich Picture of the Food System in Tolga – seen from our Perspective

from vision to action adescription and analysis of the food system in

Transcription

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