11 Some Reflections on Swedish Food Strategies from a Sami and an Arctic Perspective Lena Maria Nilsson

11 Some reflections on Swedish food strategies from a Sami and an Arctic perspective Lena Maria Nilsson Introduction Food security is targeted in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), Target 2.1: ‘By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particu- lar the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round’. Food security exists when ‘all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’ (F.A.O., 1996). The Scandinavian North is generally considered a food secure area; Scandinavian people today do not suffer from starvation or malnutrition. In Northernmost Sweden, well-stocked grocery stores offer delicious food from all over the world at reasonable prices. As part of the general welfare system, nurseries and schools pro- vide free lunches to all children. However, in discussions of the future im- pacts of globalisation and climate change, interest in food sovereignty has increased, and the food security of the North has been questioned (Nilsson and Evengård, 2015). In fact, the Nordic countries generally have an insuf- ficient level of food self-sufficiency. Only Denmark, where approximately 50% of the land is used for agricultural production, has a net export of na- tionally produced food (Karlsson et al., 2018), which means that the Danes would likely be able to feed their entire population in case of a trade arrest. In Finland, Sweden, and Norway, this is not the case. Food sustainability is another important concept. In this context, modern farming, which is rationalised and depends on fertilisers and fuel, is often contrasted with organic farming, which is less intensive and uses cir- cular systems. It can be argued that both systems are sustainable, industri- alised because it requires smaller land aerials and a smaller human work force to produce a fixed amount of food, and organic because it uses fewer non- renewable resources. Neither of the systems includes by default an In- digenous perspective. In 2017, all political parties of Sweden agreed on a National Food Strat- egy, the first one to cover all levels of the food chain (Lövén and Bucht, 2017; Näringsdepartementet, 2017a). This national strategy was followed by an DOI: 10.4324/9781003057758-11 204 Lena Maria Nilsson intensified discussion of regional, national, and international food strategies. However, notably missing from these discussions was an Indigenous perspective. One food strategy study, for example, has used a participatory approach and a scenario methodology to design a food vision for the Nordic countries (Karlsson et al., 2018). This study was well designed and conducted, and its findings significantly deepen the discussion on food sovereignty. Karlsson et al. (2018) invited NGOs representing ecological food production/farming in the four Nordic countries to participate in guided discussions with the researchers. These discussions concluded that implementing full-scale organic farming systems in the Nordic countries; decreasing the production and consumption of meat; and increasing the production and consumption of rapeseed, grain legumes, vegetables, and other crops could give the Nordic countries a food sovereignty level of 130% by 2030. This would also enable all the Nordic countries except Norway to achieve over 100% food sovereignty; in Norway, organic agriculture would only result in 51% food sovereignty (Karlsson et al., 2018). In the normative decisions un- derlying this scenario, all arable land should be used primarily to produce plant-based human food. Animal feed should be derived primarily from food by-products, and ‘semi-natural pastures and Norwegian outfield areas (i.e., forest and mountainous pastures, not counted as agricultural land), where grazing can promote biodiversity and annual cropping is unfeasible’. (Karlsson et al., 2018, page 5). Despite the strengths of this study, one important perspective is missing – that of Indigenous Peoples. According to a Sami worldview (such as that of the present author), there is no such thing as an outfield area in Norway. In the Arctic parts of Sweden, Norway, and Finland, outfield areas are places used since time immemorial to fish, graze reindeer, and gather wild berries and herbs. In a personal conversation, the main author, Johan Karlsson, indicated that the Indigenous perspective was not, in fact, completely absent from the discussions preceding the paper. During one scenario workshop, a person involved in reindeer herding high- lighted the lack of a Sami perspective in the discussion. However, this view was not further advanced into the final consensus of the workshop. Wild herbs and berries are not mentioned in the government bill that forms the background to the National Food Strategy action plan, and reindeer and game meat are addressed only briefly. The importance of reindeer herding to Sami culture is stressed, but its potential importance to food sovereignty is minimised (Lövén and Bucht, 2017). Reindeer and game are only mentioned: ‘The production of game and reindeer meat can help to create growth in the food supply chain. There should be easier access to markets’ (Näringsdepartementet, 2017a). Consequently, in the governmental action plan connected to this bill, not one action supporting reindeer herding is included (Näringsdepartementet, 2017b). Food security strategies in Northernmost Sweden have changed pro- foundly over the last 100 years. In addition, the definition of food security in Some reflections on Swedish food strategies 205 Sweden has changed from a traditional Sami perspective to an interpreta- tion rooted in the national welfare policy to one based on the modern global market. This chapter will discuss how traditional knowledge of foods and food systems in Arctic Sweden could be applied to food security policies today, especially as Northern Europe is increasingly affected by climate change. The chapter will review Sweden’s 2017 National Food Strategy and reflect on it from a Sami cultural perspective. This reflection will focus on the fol- lowing questions: What can we learn from pre-modern food strategies in Sápmi? Which traditional food items may still be produced and harvested? And how could traditional Sami knowledge related to food security contrib- ute to future regional food strategies if it were included in the agenda? The impact of colonialism on food security The Sami people are the Indigenous People of Northernmost Norway, Sweden, and Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. This region is also called Sápmi (Figure 11.1). Throughout modern history, these nation-states’ actions regarding the Sami’s Indigenous rights to land and water have fulfilled the criteria of colo- nial policies. An example of these policies in Sweden is provided by (Össbo and Lantto, 2011). Therefore, the establishment of these nation-states will hereafter be referred to as the colonisation of Sápmi. This colonisation began in the mid-1700s, intensified during the industrial era, and continues today. Colonisation has had a significant impact on the food system and food sovereignty of Sápmi. Traditional food-related land use, such as picking berries and herbs, harvesting the inner bark of pine, fishing, hunting, small-scale Figure 11.1 T he Sapmi region of the European High North (EHN). 206 Lena Maria Nilsson farming, and reindeer herding, have been disadvantaged compared to large- scale agricultural, extractive, industrial, recreational, military, and other state-supported land uses. For example, Sami cultural heritage has not been sufficiently considered in environmental impact assessments (2017). Adding the impact of unplanned destructive events such as pollution and soil and water system degradation, the self-sufficiency capacity of traditional food items has severely decreased throughout Sápmi, including Northern Swe- den, which is the focus of this chapter. Food security in the past It is important not to romanticise or exotify the past. Compared to other parts of the Arctic Boreal region (the taiga), rather advanced agriculture is biologically possible in Sápmi, making this region unique in the circum- polar areas (Mela, 1996). This is also one of the reasons for the area’s early colonisation. In pre-modern times, periods of food security in Sápmi were continuously interrupted by periods of food insecurity and starvation due to annual variations in wild and cultivated crops and other unpredictable random events, such as the Swedish–Russian War of 1809 (Kaati et al., 2007) and the heavy snow cover of the 1930s, which significantly reduced local reindeer stocks in Northern Sweden (Lantto, 2000). However, even though Sápmi’s past cannot be called food secure, a health survey of the Northern Swedish population in 1929–1931 indicated that residents in the inland areas, inhabited to a large extent by Sami people, had a better nutri- tional status than the coastal, mainly non-Sami population (Odin, 1937). In the early 1900s, self-sufficiency was still the key element of food security in Northernmost Sweden. Sami food strategies of the early 1900s may therefore deserve some attention in discussions of modern food strategies. Food security strategies in the early 1900s Many attempts have been made to distinguish between traditional Sami food culture and traditional Northern Swedish food culture (Ryd, 2015). These attempts have all assumed negligible interactions among the different ethnic groups. However, interviews with elderly Sami reveal the opposite. Food security was achieved through interaction and sharing between local Sami and non-Sami people and between nomadic and settled Sami; all groups contributed their own specialised food items (Nilsson et al., 2011; Ryd, 2015). The main Sami contributions to this interaction were traditional foods that relied primarily on plant and animal food sources available in the Scandinavian North, such as edible plants and berries, pine inner bark, fish, game, and reindeer meat. Reindeer or goat milk was used for cheese production in some Sami communities in the early 1900s.

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