Land Use Policy 27 (2010) 946–956 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Tenancy in Norwegian agriculture W.E. Dramstad a,∗ , N. Sang b a Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, P.O. Box 115, NO-1431 Aas, Norway b Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, UK article info Article history: Received 27 February 2009 Received in revised form 11 December 2009 Accepted 16 December 2009 Keywords: Tenancy Spatial statistics Agricultural land management abstract Norwegian agriculture has, as in most western-European countries, gone through several periods of change during the last 100 years. Pronounced changes have occurred in production systems and the spatial organisation of farm land, as well as agricultural policy. During the last 50 years, official statistics document a marked decline in the number of active farms. This decline has caused concern, as Norway traditionally has had an agricultural policy that emphasises self-sufficiency and rural settlement. Yet statistics also show that the amount of agricultural land in use has remained the same. This is usually explained through a larger proportion of tenanted land, as technological progress has allowed produc- tion levels to be maintained with a smaller workforce. Studies elsewhere in Europe show, however, that tenancy may not promote the same levels of investment and landscape management as owner occupation. To assess the potential impact of this change on Norway’s landscape (and its value as both a cultural and tourism resource) we analyse tenancy patterns in Norwegian agriculture between 1999 and 2003. In particular we note that, even if owner occupation remains strong nationally, when the statistics are broken down by municipality, tenancy has increased significantly in some areas. This has left large areas of land managed as tenancies by a relatively small number of farmers, including parts of the iconic west coast fjords. We conclude therefore that further work is urgently required to establish whether the effects of tenancy seen elsewhere apply to Norway, whether this exposes key landscapes to increased risk of abandonment and if so what appropriate political responses there could be. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction There has been a wide range of changes taking place in Nor- wegian agriculture during the last century, as in most other western-European countries (Meeus, 1993; Foley et al., 2005). Although there are pronounced geographical differences (Fjellstad and Dramstad, 1999), changes have primarily been a continuous specialisation, mechanisation and intensification accompanied by an increase in farm sizes. A number of driving forces have influ- enced these changes; technological development, market prices for agricultural products, and national as well as international agricul- tural policy (Almås, 1994; Wood and Handley, 2001; Bjørkhaug, 2006, 2007; Mottet et al., 2006; Van Doorn and Bakker, 2007). Changes in farm production systems and agricultural policy have also led to a regionalisation of certain productions, in some cases coupled with pronounced landscape changes. As an example, the dairy production was to a large extent moved west in the late ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +47 64 94 96 84; fax: +47 64 94 80 01. E-mail addresses: wenche.dramstad@skogoglandskap.no (W.E. Dramstad), n.sang@macaulay.ac.uk (N. Sang). 1960s, away from the south-eastern parts of Norway where cereal production was feasible (Almås, 2004). Norwegian farms have historically been small; average farm size in 1949 was only 4.8 ha. Norwegian farms have had, therefore, a long tradition of what is now termed “diversification” (Hetland, 1986; Daugstad et al., 2006) i.e. multiple kinds of agricultural production in addition to a variety of other sources of house- hold income, such as fishery and forestry. Although the traditional pluriactivity, which for centuries (almost) secured existence in an unpredictable and rough climate with limited land suitable for pro- duction became less common post-WWII (Hetland, 1986; Goodale and Sky, 2001), it seems to remain a stable strategy for farms that need additional income; it is simply that the types of work under- taken have changed (Hetland, 1986; Jones, 1988). Although the number of properties recorded as agricultural still amounts to more than 200 000, the number of active 1 farms in Norway today is only 23% of what it was in 1949 (49 800 ver- sus 213 444). It can therefore be seen as somewhat surprising that 1 By active farms we mean farms where the residents are involved in agricultural production, and applying for agricultural subsidies. 0264-8377/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.12.008