Greeting speech given at The World Championship in Sheep Shearing, Bjerkreim

Organizer, participants, visitors and public;

On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food I have the pleasure to welcome you all, and in particular all you foreign guests, coming to Norway from 30 nations all over the world to participate in the World Championship in Sheep Shearing.

You are visiting a country with a typical small scale agricultural production. Norwegian agriculture consists of relatively small farms spread around on 1 mill. hectar arable land, which constitutes 3% of the total area of Norway. But we also have outlying fields with rough grassland which is of great importance in general for norwegian husbandry and in special for the production of mutton and wool.

Without sheep breeding it would have been impossible to live in Norway before modern times. In the time of the vikings for example, sheep breeding gave the necessary material basis for surviving in the harch climate of Norway, giving both food and warm clothes. 

From my opinion wool is a unique fabric, which

• is produced with low energy consumption 
• is free from any poison and tested from nature itself for allergy components and is friendly for the skin
• is an airy and warm fabric, it is keeping its quality for a long time and is easy to mix with other fibres
• overall, it is a knitting revolution going on  to meet the increasing demand of products from wollen yarn, based on a strong fashion trend.

Wool is therefore of great value and a considerable natural resource which we norwegians have learnt to value highly.

I am very proud of the fact that Norway is the organizer of this World Championship this year. I very much enjoy to be here watching first class craft in sheep shearing and wool handling.

On this background I wish both participants and organizers the very best luck with the World Championship.