Urban Agriculture in Norway: Key Actors, Motivations and Municipal Strategies

Ellen Marie Forsberg (The County Governor in Oslo and Akershus)

In the recent years there have been an increasing interest in growing food in many Norwegian cities. The reason behind this green movement has not been poverty or lack of food. Norway is a wealthy, oil producing country in Northern Europe, with a rather cold climate and short summer season. The challenges are many and the knowledge of how to grow food are in general rather poor among the urban population, who largely stopped growing vegetables in cities after the second world war.

The interest in urban farming has been returning since 2000s. The urban municipalities have slowly realized that many of their inhabitants want to put up pallet collars for gardening in their neighbourhoods or that a small farm surrounded by housings in a densifying city can have an important, social function. The number of people who want an allotment are growing, and the municipalities have reacted differently, but positive to this demand. Who are these groups of people and how is urban growing integrated in public spaces in Norwegian cities? How are these trends supported on a strategic level? This paper will be based on my experiences from many years of work as a senior advisor responsible for urban agriculture strategies at the County Governor of Oslo and Akershus. The County Governor, my workplace since 2002, has played a role in the development and facilitation of urban agriculture projects in the Oslo area, next to the grassroot movement of academics, hipsters, immigrants, teachers and others. I will in this presentation identify the key actors, and their varied reason for cultivating public spaces in Norway, discuss the strategies used in Oslo and other Norwegian cities, and present some cases.