Without support, the levels of agricultural public goods will fall short of the demand in high cost countries like Norway, Finland and Iceland. However, as demonstrated in this paper using Norway as a case, the current support and agricultural activity is far out of proportions from a public goods perspective. Model simulations show that at most 40% of the current support level can be defended by the public good argument. Furthermore, the present support, stimulating high production levels, is badly targeted at the public goods in question. Since agricultural land is a major component of both food security and landscape preservation, thus giving rise to a high degree of cost complementarities between the two public goods, it would be more efficient to support land extensive production techniques, than production per se.

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In recent years, trade dynamics have been receiving increased attention, and the general literature indicates that commodities are different. In this paper, the duration of trade relationships for Norwegian export firms to various markets is investigated for six product forms of one commodity, cod. The results indicate that the duration of most trade relationships is very short, and shorter than what is normally reported in the literature. Still, the substantial variation in duration by product form and factors influencing it, indicates heterogeneous dynamics for each supply chain even for slight differences in the characteristics of a commodity. Moreover, the short duration of trade relationships in the supply chains for Norwegian cod indicates that they remain very traditional food supply chains, with few attempts at reducing transaction costs through vertical coordination or relationships.

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Norwegian agriculture makes a disproportionate contribution to the country's emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) relative to its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP)-a picture that is repeated globally. Using a detailed economic model we examine what impacts an assumed 30 per cent cut in GHG emissions from agriculture may have on food production. We find that a CO 2 tax on agricultural activity would result in a reduction of agricultural production, particularly of GHG-intensive commodities such as beef and sheepmeat. The use of feed and fertilizer would fall. There would be an extensification of production and emissions per hectare would decline. In contrast, if farmers are rewarded for carbon sequestration through agroforestry, this would lead to intensification. More inputs would be applied to land that remained in agriculture and emissions per unit of agricultural land would increase. Although the numerical results are specific to the Norwegian setting, they are illustrative of global issues. If agriculture is to meet the food needs of an expanding world population while simultaneously contributing to mitigation of GHG emissions, this will require the intensification of production-higher output per unit of land with higher emissions per unit of land area, but with lower emissions per unit of agricultural production.