The Bioeconomy of the Arctic

Haraldur HallgrímssonSigrún Elsa Smáradóttir

Torfi Jóhannesson

Nice barley field

Why are the mountains white?

The harvest

Viðmið Ísland0

500

1000

1500

2000

Viðmið Ísland0

50

100

150

200

250

Growing conditions in EU and Iceland

Day-degrees Growth Days

Very severly limiting

Good condtions

Severly limiting

Why are we doing this?

• Food security• Rural development• ...

• And how do we do this?

State support

1. To stimulate production• production based direct supprt

2. To secure agricultural land use• Hectare support

3. To increase productivity• Investment support

4. To facilitate sustainable production methods• Environmental payments

Food security

1. Are the tomatoes fresh?2. Are there any tomatoes?3. Is there any food?

Food security

• Generally high levels of self-sufficiency in Iceland and the rest of Scandinavia due to high support level and import restrictions

• Lower levels in Faroe Islands and Greenland• Different situation in Russia, Canada and

Alaska

The challenge is competitievness• How can barley production

in Iceland become competitive with barley from the EU?

Uniqueness

Specialization and food security

• Specialization does not provide food security but it gives the potential

• ....and it gives positive rural development

Population density

MT NL BE UK DE IT LU CZ DK PL PT SK HU FR SI AT RO ES EL CY BG IE LT LV EE SE FI IS0.00

200.00

400.00

600.00

800.00

1,000.00

1,200.00

1,400.00

Inha

bita

nts/

km2

1/6 of Finland

1901 1950 1980 2011

9,772 9,975

14,884 15,379 West Iceland 1901 1950 1980 2011

2,331

1,246 1,194

684

Dalir – far from Reykjavík

1901 1950 1980 2011

2,993 2,848

4,356 3,922

Snæfellsnes - far from Reykjavík

1901 1950 1980 2011

2,882 2,716

3,572 3,533

Borgarfjörður- close to Reykjavík

1901 1950 1980 2011

1,566

3,165

5,762

7,240

Akranes - close to Reykjavík

Population development

Agricultural communities

Fishing communities

Bottom line:

• Bigger cities are the drivers of population development

• Agriculture and fisheries alone cannot be the backbones of future population development

Primary production has the general tendency to increase efficiency = reduce labor

CAPITAL

LABOR

TIME

When resources are fixed, employment is bound to go down

CAPITAL

LABOR

TIME

Solutions

A. To find new resourcesB. To get larger share of the value chain

Bioeconomy of the Arctic

• Research project funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers

• Will feed into the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Nordic Council in 2014.

What is the Bioeconomy of the Arctic?

Fresh water

Animal husbandry

Semi-wild food and fur production

fishing

Bioeconomy

Main Elements of the Project

• Mapping of renewable biological resources

• Food Security: Mapping food production, food export and food import

• Evaluation of utilization of biological resources and food security in the Arctic

• High level conference

Arctic Bio-economy: StatusFramework for analysis of a bio-economy:

1. Identify and quantify the biological resources available.2. Mapping of production, import and export of goods from biological

resources.3. Evaluate the utilization of biological resources with regard to

economic factors as well as the society and the environment.

•The goal is to evaluate to what extent this kind of analysis is possible for the arctic countries and to suggest metrics to use for the analysis.

•The framework will make comparison between countries possible.

Arctic bioeconomy

For further information on the Artic Bioeconomy project please contact: Sveinn Margeirsson, CEO (sveinn.margeirsson@matis.is) Haraldur Hallgrímsson, division director (hari@matis.is) Sigrún Elsa Smáradóttir, research group leader (sigrun@matis.is)