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Nordic Ministers discussed NordGen at meeting in Haparanda

Date: 2018.06.29

NordGen is a unique gene bank in the respect that we are a regional one. Whereas many gene banks are national, we preserve and facilitate the sustainable use of genetic resources in all of the Nordic countries. Consequently, our activities from time to time is a topic discussed by the different countries’ ministers. This week, the discussions take place on the Swedish/Finnish border, at the Nordic Council of Ministers in Haparanda.

Once a year, the Nordic ministers meet to discuss their respective fields of responsibility. When NordGen and the task of preserving genetic resources are to be discussed it is done so by the ministers in the Nordic Council of Ministers for Fisheries, Aquaculture, Agriculture, Food and Forestry (MR-FJLS). A central theme at this meeting was to find sustainable solutions for NordGen’s future operations.

“NordGen is the Nordic institution, which perhaps is the very best at producing concrete results of Nordic cooperation. The work done by NordGen to preserve genetic resources is unusually important – for all the Nordic countries”, says Jon Georg Dale, Norwegian Minister of Agriculture and Food.

CREATES NORDIC BENEFITS

Each country has a responsibility, through several different international agreements, to preserve and facilitate the sustainable use of its genetic resources. In the Nordic countries we have chosen to cooperate over the national borders to fulfill this responsibility. This means that NordGen is a clear example of how Nordic cooperation create concrete benefits. The cooperation also allows the countries to save funds.

“NordGen is one of the most important tools the Nordic Ministers of Agriculture and Food have. If we hadn’t had NordGen, the countries would stand before immense, national tasks to be fulfilled by themselves and done so in a much less cost-effective way,” says Dagfinn Høybråten, Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

During 2018, the presidency of the Nordic Cooperation is held by Sweden and that’s why the MR-FJLS meeting is held in HaparandaTornio, where the Swedish minister Sven-Erik Bucht is from.