Study title

The Norwegian agricultural sector is strongly regulated and protected. A main pillar in the agricultural policy is to ensure a balance between domestic production and consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products. There have been significant changes in consumption. Changes in relative prices and real income are important in explaining these changes, but demographic factors such as an ageing and more heterogeneous population also have large impacts on the consumption of many foods over time. Finally, changes in preferences and attitudes affect the consumption. In this project, consumer research that is relevant for making forecasts for the sales of agricultural products have been conducted, and improved forecasting models for the short-run (1 year) and the long-run (10 years) for sales of beef, pork, lamb, chicken, eggs and selected dairy products were made. The project specifically investigated the effects of changes in economic factors, demographic factors, and consumer attitudes and preferences. As a part of the project, two comparative studies focusing on attitudes and demographics were carried out in Norway and the US. A specific study related to the effects of immigration was also conducted in the US. Based on the consumer research in the proposal, improved forecasting models have been developed in cooperation with Nortura, Tine, the Norwegian Agricultural Authority, the Norwegian Dairy Council, the Norwegian Poultry and Meat Council, and the Agricultural Budget Committee. This dataset includes four surveys from Norway on consumption of meat and dairy products, in addition to two Best-Worst surveys conducted in Norway and the US. In addition, data from Statistics Norway's Consumer Expenditure Surveys, time series data from Nortura concerning the sales and prices of meat from 1980 to 2015, time series data provided by the Norwegian Dairy Council concerning the sales of dairy products from 1995 to 2015, the survey “Norsk Monitor” by Ipsos MMI, american data on...