Food production plays a vital role across all Nordic countries, with important changes underway due to the green transition. This shift brings both an urgent need and opportunity to develop innovative and green businesses, including food systems that harness natural resources to generate added value. However, there is declining interest among young people in pursuing careers within this sector. At the same time, recent global crises have resulted in greater focus on ensuring more robust and resilient food systems.
This report draws on statistics on status and trends within food systems. It gives an overview of research and analyses in previous and ongoing studies and presents a survey among young people in the Nordic countries about their preferences and motivations for education and careers in food systems. Input from a reference group composed of young professionals and experts helped ensured relevance and grounding of the results and recommendations.
The investigation of the role of young people and opportunities in the Nordic food sectors focuses on the following main topics:
- High expectations placed on young people as “agents of change”
- The rural-urban divide
- Education, family and (digital) peers
- The future of work: reimagining food systems
The key policy recommendations include suggestions for dissemination and take-up aimed at boosting youth participation in food systems. While the project primarily focuses on the Nordic countries, it also incorporates the Baltic perspective where possible, extending the discussion to the wider Nordic-Baltic region and highlighting both commonalities and differences.
