Norway’s fur sector will be closed by the end of 2015, according to the governmental plan of banning fur farms and order of the financial compensations to their owners. As The Local Norway understood, the draft law anticipates the full ban of the fur farms in six years.
Norway’s fur farmers were far from delight when the Cabinet shared the plan to ban fur sector by 2025. The offering financial compensation farmers blasted as a “historic betrayal”, reminding that fur industry was one of the most important in the Scandinavian country over centuries.
A draft law presented to parliament would render it illegal after 2025 to possess animals for the purpose of killing them “for the sale or any other use of their fur.” In fact, the idea of a gradual dismantling of the fur industry is quite reasonable, but it made farmers very angry.
“We’re being offered a few kroner, which is far from compensating for the planned dismantling of farms,” Guri Wormdahl, a spokeswoman for the fur farmers’ organisation Norges Pelsdyralslag, told.
Even with the generous financial compensation from Norway’s government, the ban will lead farmers straight to bankruptcy much faster than 2025. They insist that fur doesn’t have to make people feel bad.
How much Norway’s government will pay to the fur farmers
According to Norges Pelsdyralslag, the country’s fur farming industry employs around 500 people and has annual sales of 300 million kroner. All Norwegian fur was made from animals treated as well as possible under existing standards, it is a must.
The government has estimated it will have to pay farmers around 500 million kroner (EUR 52 million) in compensation for either the dismantling or reconversion of their businesses, many of them are working for centuries.
Norway accounts for around one percent of global mink fur production and between two and three percent of fox fur production.
