What happens on a Norwegian farm when the power is out for several days? That question drew 119 registrants when Grønn Gårdsenergi, NORCE, and Nordic Edge hosted a seminar on the “Emergency Preparedness Farm” at Innoasis on November 9. 78 people attended the seminar online—from Vadsø in the north to Halden in the south.
Among the online participants were representatives from 25 municipalities, four county councils, the State Administration, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, as well as research institutions such as NIBIO and Ruralis and stakeholders from the energy and agricultural sectors. In the audience were, among others, the farmers involved in the project, representatives from the municipalities, and researchers from NORCE.
The seminar took place in the midst of the Total Defense Year 2026. Tord Skogedal Lindén, Director of Research and Innovation at NORCE, set the stage: “Civil security is about protecting critical functions, and food, water, and energy are among the most important.” He referred to a report from the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment that points out that Norway is vulnerable because we are dependent on imports.
Tarald Magne Oma runs a dairy farm in Time and produces about 600,000 liters of milk per year. For him, the crisis hits quickly.
“The milking robot stops immediately. After four to five hours, the situation starts to become critical, and after ten hours, it’s a full-blown crisis. Then it’s a matter of animal welfare, and the milk in the tank has to be discarded,” said Oma.
He has been in Ukraine during the war, and that has shaped his approach to emergency preparedness. The farm has solar panels and a generator, and the diesel fuel is stored in several locations. If one location is taken, not everything is lost.
The initiative comes from Kjell Ivar Ueland and Røysland Gaard in Bjerkreim, where he has been working on this for five years. The farm has its own slaughterhouse and meat production. The goal is to operate it without external electricity or heat—using wind, solar, batteries, and wood chips to provide both power and heat.
“The main goal is for farmers to be key players in emergency preparedness. Farmers are the best in the country at preparing food. Let them continue doing that, even when the going gets tough,” said Ueland.
County Administrator Bent Høie in Rogaland has been a key driving force behind the initiative, and the municipalities in the region have followed suit. Ten farms and three businesses in Rogaland are now part of the Emergency Preparedness Farm. Grønn Gårdsenergi owns the project, Nordic Edge is the project manager and cluster partner, and NORCE is the research partner. Together, the farms will establish a common standard for equipment, thereby reducing procurement and maintenance costs.
The biggest technical challenge is managing all energy sources simultaneously. The requirement is simple: If you can read, you should be able to operate the system. Eventually, the plan is to establish at least three demonstration farms in other parts of the country.
Bjerkreim is the host municipality for the project. Municipal Director Ørjan Daltveit explained that the Total Defense Year has changed how the municipality approaches emergency preparedness—from severe weather to crises and war. The municipality has already provided farmers with grants for backup generators.
Daltveit pointed out four vulnerable areas. Water, because boreholes require electricity to pump water up. Backup power, because the area’s wind power feeds into the central grid and is lost when the grid goes down. Transportation, because both bringing in feed and transporting animals out depend on fuel. And networks, where default passwords on routers pose a real risk.
Nito Simonsen of Green River Investment Management compared emergency preparedness to insurance: We pay for something we hope we’ll never need. The question is who should pay to ensure farms can keep production going during a crisis.
Grønn Gårdsenergi and Green River are working, together with Nordic Edge and NORCE, on a multi-level preparedness certificate, under which farms are paid for the preparedness they can provide. Potential buyers could include municipalities, the Norwegian Armed Forces, food chains, insurance companies, and the power industry. The model is currently under development.
Simonsen also emphasized the value of diversification and protection. Many small producers are less vulnerable than a few large ones, and overviews of critical resources should not be published indiscriminately.
Kristiane Marie Lindland, research director at NORCE, presented the EU project HarvRESt, in which farms in Norway, Denmark, Italy, and Spain are testing renewable energy in agriculture. Røysland is the Norwegian case study, and there, emergency preparedness has taken on an increasingly important role. The project concludes at the end of the year and has developed tools to help farmers assess which energy solutions are best suited to their individual farms.
Ueland concluded by expressing a hope that farmers will stand together, rather than everyone doing things their own way.
“I want farmers to have a bright and promising future, and for the next generation to want to take over the farms. If we can achieve resilience and green energy as a bonus, that is my greatest wish,” said Ueland.