A walk with Ove Jensen on his farm in Trossnas, Sweden, will convince you that Swedish farmers are among the most efficient in the world. Encouraged to make the most of the country's harsh climate by Sweden's system of food subsidies, Swedish farms bristle with the latest technology. But Jensen's commitment to producing food doesn't stop at Sweden's borders. He is currently trying to share equipment with farmers in Poland.
At a conference sponsored by Moral Re-Armament in Switzerland last summer, Jensen met Polish farming representatives. They expressed their concerns over shortages of forestry and agricultural equipment.
For example there are seldom any facilities for keeping milk cool on Polish farms. As a result milk quality is so poor that doctors sometimes warn parents to boil it before giving it to children. Yet the dairy cooperative to which Jensen belongs in Sweden has 70 second-hand milk refrigeration tanks which have been turned in by milk producers.
Jensen invited the Poles to come to the Varmland region of Sweden in January to meet farming representatives. Now plans are under way to get the milk tanks to Poland. A wider collection of equipment is also planned.
Jensen's commitment to feeding the world has taken him in unexpected directions before. In the 1960s, when milk prices were unfavourable and other farmers were getting out of milk production, Jensen started a dairy herd. 'Swedes like milk, and not enough of us were producing it,' he says. Later, as milk prices rose, Jensen's decision proved economically right.
A decision he took when he was 35 years old had nothing to do with economics. In response to his new-found faith in God he calculated that he had cheated the Swedish tax authorities to the tune of SK 12,000. He decided to write a letter to them declaring this, and pay it back.
It is this spirit, as much as any farming equipment, that his Polish friends want him to share.
