Farming in Norway

Erlend Teig and Randi Iren Liverud

This husband and wife partnership along with their three children aged 12, six and four, farm 40ha in southern Norway, in what is considered one of the more fertile farming regions of the country. They keep 23 milk cows and grow 20ha of grain rotating between wheat, barley and oats.

Male calves are sold off young either through their co-op or privately to a neighbouring farmer who rears calves. While the farm was inherited from Erlend’s parents, her husband who comes from the local town is now fully involved in working the farm.

Both have off-farm work with Erlend working part time in the local co-op, an agricultural supplies store and her husband Randi works in local heritage. They stagger their working hours so that one parent is always at home to look after the children.

Cows are tied in a barn that has served the family since the 1920s but will not meet the “free range” requirements for livestock after 2024.

Investment in new housing to meet this requirement is a major concern for many smaller Norwegian farmers as it involves considerable capital investment. As the photographs illustrate, this housing system is one that would have been familiar in Ireland decades ago and still used extensively in Poland.

Like the rest of Norway, it is a particularly short growing season, with cattle not out until well in to May and back indoors permanently by the end of September. Grass is harvested through round bales during the growing season and grain is sold through the co-op.

The farm has a 159,000-litre milk quota with 134,000 owned and the remaining 25,000 leased. They keep Norwegian Red cows who yield on average 7,200 litres annually. Quota costs around the equivalent of €10/litre to buy in Norway and about the equivalent of 60c/litre to rent. In any sale of quota, the government takes 20% to add to the national reserve.

Tor Jacob Solberg

Tor Jacob Solberg is a former winner of the Norwegian young farmer of the year in 2014. He grew up on a family farm but his outlook on farming was greatly shaped and influenced by a period he spent working on a farm in New Zealand in 2003, where he went after completing his education.

On his return to Norway, he borrowed to purchase his farm of 30ha and 84 ha of forestry for just over the equivalent of €300,000 and rents a further 70ha. In the 13 years since, he has built a cattle shed, incorporating a robotic milker at a cost of over €600,000 and established a dairy herd of 60 cows and 20 sucklers, mainly Charolais bred. He has invested almost €0.5m equivalent in machinery, livestock and quota. Robotic milking equipment is particularly popular in Norway, with an estimated 1,200 out of the country’s 9,000 dairy farms having one installed. It is estimated that one-third of the total milk production in Norway is done by robot.

He works, like all Norwegian farmers, with a short four- to five-month growing season, during which he lets the cows outside and harvests 2,000 round bales of silage which is fed along with bruised grain, usually wheat but sometimes barley. This is grown on the farm in a three-year grass, two-year grain cycle.

His herd of mainly Norwegian Red dairy cows yields 8,000 litres of milk annually on a one-third grain, two-thirds grass or silage diet. Male calves are sold off at three months with heifers kept for replacement. He values his dairy cows at up to the equivalent of €2,000 though a good-quality Charolais beef cow with calf is worth up to the equivalent of €3,500.

A further feature of his shed is recycling the energy from the milk cooler to produce hot water worth the equivalent of €55 per day to the farm.

Svend Arild Uvaag

Svend Arild Uvaag farms 90ha, keeping 55 milking cows and around 100 feeding bulls. These include his own calves and buying in a further 70 or so each year. He had 15ha inherited from his parents who started farming it in 1961 and bought a further 32ha with the remainder rented on either five- or ten-year leases.

He has been farming on his own account since 1991 and has a son involved part time who rents his own farm. This is a highly mechanised farm with a superb cattle house. Farm equipment is shared between both farms and includes a Keenen feeder. The cattle are kept indoors all the time for feeding and milking though they do get out for a walk in the short summer season.

His milking herd is made up of Norwegian Red cows, yielding 9,000 litres of milk on 11kg of grain fed in addition to grass silage. The farm grows 45ha of grain annually which is sold as a cash crop.

Listen to an interview with Svend below

The farm has a particularly impressive cattle shed with capacity for 67 milking cows and 120 beef cattle. It is complete with a robotic milking unit, and features a separate lying and feeding area for cows, accessed by automatic one-way gates. If a cow hasn’t entered the milking area for seven and a half hours, it is forced to go that way to access the feeding passage thereby ensuring milking before feeding.

The shed was completed in 2013 at a cost of just under the equivalent of €800,000. It is truly a 21st century design with an office complete with computer overlooking the robotic milking area.