Claim for damages may exceed half a billion

Sheep ,farmer, claims, damagesIllustration.Sheep farmer. Photo: Pixabay.com

Claim for damages from farmers may exceed half a billion

If the sharp increase in compensation claims from farmers as a result of the dry summer this year continues, the final bill can surpass NOK 500 million. This is ten fold the amounts paid in a normal year for crop damages.

 

In Oppland, the County Governor fears that the claims will amount to NOK 70 million. An average of 47 million a year was paid for entire Norway in the period 2007-2016, by comparison, writes Nationen.

Minister of Food and Agriculture, Jon Georg Dale (Progress Party) will not provide any concrete estimates, but acknowledge that it will be much higher than normal.

– The problem is that we do not have a total overview before we have better knowledge of the crops situation. We already know, based on the estimates we have received from the County Councilors, that the crop damage compensation scheme is estimated to be charged three to four times more than usual, somewhere in the order of NOK 200 million, he says.

Farmers can seek compensation if they experience large crop damage due to climate conditions they can not safeguard against (force majeure). The application deadline for crop damage claims is in October. The Directorate of Agriculture will not possess final figures until all the applications have been processed.

 

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today