Fish versus farms on the Faroes

In Canada and indeed in most western countries, agriculture usually struggles to be heard and understood by a largely urban public that has little idea of where their food comes from. 

In the Faroe Islands, a collection of 18 islands located midway between Scotland, Iceland and Norway in the North Atlantic, the fight for agriculture is less rural versus urban than it is farm versus fish.

It’s hardly surprising when over 90 per cent of the Faroese economy depends on fish – and so much of these islands, a self-governing part of Denmark with a population of just over 50,000, is a fascinating intersection of old versus new and innovation versus tradition. 

The Faroes are rocky, cool and wet, so agriculture is challenging, and their remote location makes transportation and imports expensive. The Faroese diet thus includes a wide range of foods not common in other western cultures.

“Anything is a food source here, like whale, puffin, seals etc,” explained farmer Johannes Pattursson, whose home, called Kirkjuboargardur, dates to the 11th century and is one of the oldest still-inhabited wooden houses in the world. “We’ve been farming and living sustainably here for hundreds of years – if you aren’t sustainable, you die.” 

In exchange for access to the lucrative and crucial European Union (EU) market for its farmed salmon, the Faroese government regularly makes concessions at the expense of the number two sector, agriculture. 

Farming on the Faroes ranges from stone buildings with home-slaughtered lambs to highly productive robotic dairy barns, but it’s a sector that an Agricultural Agency spokesperson says could do much more to contribute to food security on the islands with proper government action.

“There is enormous potential to be self-sufficient in meat, dairy and some grain if we could just get our act together,” said Jens Ivan í Gerdium, who has been unsuccessfully pushing the Faroese government for an official agricultural policy for years. “I love farming, but the real money is in fishing. There is no political interest in farming, it’s always about supporting the fisheries.” 

The building that houses the Agency was previously an active agricultural research station. Its government funding ended following a Faroese economic crisis in 1992. Today, the Agency, which hasn’t had a funding increase since 1992, devotes most of its time to administering large swaths of public lands rented to farmers.

That lack of government support for the agriculture sector is evident particularly in sheep production. According to Gerdium, there are about 75,000 breeding ewes on the islands, but official numbers show only about 5,000 insured animals. An average farm has about 177 breeding ewes with the largest farm running 700 ewes on approximately 3,000 acres, most of which is rocky, unproductive land not otherwise suited for food production. 

The only sheep on the island are a Faroese breed of Northern European short tails, which are small and hardy but have had very little genetic improvement over the centuries. They’re not very prolific, and the wool isn’t of great quality but there is potential for growth – lamb is a popular meat in the Faroese diet and the islands are only 50 per cent self-sufficient in its production. 

“If you think about fully using natural resources as sustainably as possible, they fit quite well,” Gerdium said. “What else would we have been able to eat that processes the grass on the hills into something suitable for humans?” 

Another big challenge for livestock farmers is the lack of an official abattoir on the islands. All livestock, from cull cows and ewes to lambs and bull calves raised for beef, are slaughtered on-farm. Many Faroese buy meat straight from farmers as they have for generations, although today, deals are also often made on Facebook or by text message. Meat inspection, traceability and food safety for meat that Canadians are used to don’t exist. 

“We haven’t had any food safety problems and there is a common agreement that if you get sick, it is your own problem. It’s a bit like the Wild West here,” Gerdium said. 

It’s only the dairy sector where Faroese agriculture is even close to reaching its domestic potential. The Faroese government placed a priority on school children having access to milk, and as farms have modernized, milk production has increased from 5.8 million litres annually in 1990 to 7.5 million in 2021 even as farm numbers dropped from close to 100 to only 16. 

Approximately 60 per cent of milk on the islands comes from farms with robotic milking systems, and a recently built dairy processing plant has expanded production of yogurt, sour cream, butter and cream. The milk price of approximately eight Danish Kroner (DKK) per litre (CDN$1.42) is enough for farmers to be competitive with large Danish dairy Arla. That’s because it takes two days by ferry for fresh milk to come from the Danish mainland, driving up the cost of imports. 

As the climate changes, Gerdium believes self-sufficiency to be the key to the future of food security on the Faroe Islands. In addition to meat and dairy, he also sees opportunities for growth in potato, grain and grass production on the islands and even hay, as geothermal and wind energy could be harnessed for hay drying activities. 

“This is an island community that is isolated which means change doesn’t come easily or fast, but I see the potential,” he said. “Fish swim away and sea farming ends up with diseases, but land farming, that’s what we’ve done for 1,200 years on the Faroe Islands. We know how it works and that’s how we feed people.”