Nordic Ministerial Seminar

2013 Tal Washington DC, USA 28 februari 2013 Eskil Erlandsson, Landsbygdsminister Nordic Ministerial Seminar Ladies and gentlemen, It's a great pleasure for me to be here in Washington. Washington is a wonderful city - full of life and also a great portion of inspiration for a European politician like me. These days the Kennedy Center hosts a Nordic festival - Nordic Cool. I do hope that the festival can act as a Nordic inspiration in Washington. I had the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Center earlier today. And I must say that I am impressed with the way the festival gives an image of the modern Nordic societies from an American point of view. New Nordic Food New Nordic Food is an important part of the modern Nordic societies. I am pleased, that we today, will have the opportunity to go behind the scene of the festival to discuss the thoughts behind New Nordic Food. There is much more to it, than you can see on the plates. I have - as minister for rural affairs in Sweden - participated actively in the Nordic cooperation on New Nordic Food for the last six years. I have for example been involved in developing Nordic initiatives together with my colleagues from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. And, I have been developing initiatives that promotes the Nordic ideas in a national Swedish context, through the work on my initiative Sweden - the new culinary nation. The concept of New Nordic Food offers a range of instruments to obtain different policy goals. It really makes a difference when addressing issues like for instance rural development, biodiversity, tasty and healthy school meals. School meals As human beings we tend to have food on our minds every day. Food is important to us. We take it for granted. But sometimes we do forget to reflect on what we are eating. We have strategies for healthier diets. We make recommendations. But we sometimes fail to build a bridge between food sciences and our senses. One good example of this is the school meals area. I think there is certainly room for improvement. In Sweden we have been serving school lunches since 1845. Today all pupils in primary school (6-16 years) are served a school lunch that is both free and nutritious. For me personally you can say that my political career started in school and in relation to school food. I'm from the countryside, from the beautiful county of Småland - also home to the famous Swedish author Astrid Lindgren and her characters. Maybe you recognize Pippi Longstocking and the inventive Emil of Lönneberga? Anyhow, me and my friends had quite long days at school and we had difficulties in concentrating towards the end of the school day, simply because we were too hungry! So, we decided together that I should go to the principal's office and explain the situation for him. A very fruitful conversation I must say. Because after our discussion all kids were offered a snack in the afternoon! My political career was born and I will always remember the taste of that cardamom bun that was the result of our negotiation. Maybe this story is one reason why I'm so interested in what is going on in other countries when it comes to food in schools. And this morning I even had the opportunity to visit a school here in Washington and god the opportunity to learn more about this particular schools commitment in school lunches. I think that exchanging knowledge and learning from each other in this area will certainly be to the benefit of school children in many countries. The quality of school meals has continuously been addressed in the Nordic cooperation as well as in our national strategies. From my point of view, I think that schools have an outstanding opportunity to make a positive and natural way to promote a healthy lifestyle with good eating habits in our children. The questions that we currently are addressing relate to school meals, environmental and climate issues and food waste. We discuss how to combine healthy food with environmentally friendly food, how to use the school meals as an educational tool. And finally, how to bring schools closer to the food production for a better understanding of how the link from farm to fork works. As a matter of fact, we have been talking about this link for many years and this focus has helped us increasing the food safety and transparency in the entire production chain. However, with New Nordic Food the starting point is the other way around; that is from the fork back to the farm. In this way the "fork", so to speak, becomes the symbol for a demand driven development. This allows us to create an economic basis for developing a more diverse food supply in all parts of the value chain. And it gives us the opportunity to use New Nordic Food as a driver for a New Rural Economy. Or what we in Sweden would call the modern rural areas. Development of rural areas Development of rural areas has for many years been a challenge for governments all over the world, not at least in Sweden and the Nordic countries. If we utilize New Nordic Food as a guide for investments, and provide opportunities that can inspire a growing local entrepreneurship it can add to the development of the rural areas. And this goes for both the traditionally strong agricultural areas as well as more remote areas, for instance the arctic region. A revitalized rural development approach leading to living local economies and a blooming of rural entrepreneurship is, in my opinion, a solid path for sustainable development. The link to a modern rural development is very important to me. But let's dwell a little on the concept of New Nordic Food. Even though we use the word Nordic, I do not see the potential limited to the Nordic countries. In the manifesto that lies behind New Nordic Food: I think you can find several interesting ideas. I would like to direct your intention to two points: Firstly. To reflect different seasons in the meals Secondly. To base cooking on raw materials which characteristics are especially excellent in our climate, landscape and waters. This focus on using what we actually have in a much better way. By promoting the different seasons and local availability we could address both climate change and biodiversity challenges. I think the ideas in the manifesto are useful as starting point for a discussion on how we can improve our work with sustainable development, and addressing climate change issues and biodiversity. Sustainability Even though the food, agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors face challenges related to climate change and loss of biodiversity, I think that they are part of the solution. The key is to strengthen sustainable management of our biological resources and to provide opportunities for green growth. And by sustainable I wish to stress that this include social, economic and environmental issues. Though, sustainable development is a strong message, our efforts since the global introduction of the concept of sustainable development at the first Rio conference in 1992 has had difficulties in building strong bridges between environmental, social and economics perspectives. The discussion on agricultural development, for instance, has often been narrowed down to a conflict between protection and production, just to take one example. I see the New Nordic Food approach as a successful bridge builder for sustainable development. With the starting point in a demand driven development focusing on diversity and seasonal changes, it can pave the way for an increased climate friendly production and use of biodiversity in the agricultural production. NordGen In the frame of the Nordic Council of Ministers we have developed a strong cooperation on genetic resources through the institution NordGen. The Nordic gene bank is far from being the biggest in the world, but it plays an increasingly important role in the Nordic countries. NordGen is responsible for two major tasks; to conserve genetic resources, and to promote sustainable utilization of genetic resources. The conservation part is the core part of the work. We do have quite a good knowledge of the seeds that we have saved. We do cooperate with other countries and gene banks on this. For instance, we have good dialogue with the Canadian gene bank and with the NGO Seed Savers in Ohio concerning a collection of seeds that has been taken to the US by Nordic immigrants many years ago. To conserve the genetic resources is much more than just storing the seeds in a freezer. It can be done following different strategies. But in fact the best strategy to conserve genetic resources is simply to eat them! By this I mean to utilize them in the production, and to promote a sustainable utilization of genetic resources in agriculture and forestry. The Forest Kingdom The Nordic region is far from only an agricultural region, it is also forest country. Forest has many different roles in the five Nordic countries. Forest provides income, and especially in Sweden and Finland forests gives an important input to the economy. It also provides recreational possibilities; it provides us with food, it is an important factor in both climate mitigation and adaptation and it is hosting a rich biological diversity. In Sweden, more than half of the area is forested and the forest industry employs more than 100 000 people, providing products from fuel and paper to furniture, housing and packaging. The forest gives us our largest export industry, with an export value approximately 19 billion US dollars.

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