Government agrees on new agricultural agreement

The Conservative Party (Høyre), the Progress Party (Frp), the Liberal Left (Venstre) and Christian Democrats (KrF) agreed on a new agricultural agreement on Wednesday.

The parties agree on an increase in the budget of around NOK 250 million more than what was originally offered to the farmers. 

This is the same amount that the Liberal Left and Christian Democrats asked for before the weekend, so it may seem like the center parties won the negotiations this time around. 

Minister of Agriculture Sylvi Listhaug (Frp) originally offered the farmers an increase in the budget of NOK 150 million from last year, which is only one tenth of what the farmers asked for in a new agreement. 

Now the total budget is set to be increased by NOK 400 million. Normally, Parliament accepts the government's offer without any negotiations, but this year a majority of the parties in Parliament voiced that may not accept Listhaug's offer, and the negotiations came to halt on May 14.

Listhaug sent her proposal to Parliament on Friday last week, and the Conservative Party and the Progress Party negotiated with the Liberal Left Party and the Christian Democrats until Wednesday evening in order to finalize this year's agricultural agreement.

The agreement also resulted in massive protests from the farmers, who traveled to Oslo on tractors to protest against Listhaug's offer. Several of them accuse the government of favoring the largest farms because the new system will grant more money to the largest and most efficient farmers. 

(Aftenposten)