NEW ZEALAND PROPOSES TO TAX COW BURPS ANGERS FARMERS

Tue 11 October 2022:

New Zealand intends to be the first country to charge farmers for the greenhouse gas emissions caused by their agricultural activities.

The program was announced on Tuesday, October 11, by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her minister. According to the newly implemented scheme, farmers will be responsible for paying for all of their gas emissions, including the nitrous oxide and methane that livestock urine emits.

According to The Guardian, the program includes taxing both methane and nitrous oxide, which are primarily released through urine that contains a lot of fertilizer and accounts for nearly half of the country’s gas emissions.

The emissions released by the digestive system of nearly 6.9 million cows in New Zealand are amongst the biggest environmental problems.

The prime minister in her announcement said that this scheme will not only benefit the country’s export but will also help it achieve the country’s 2030 methane reduction target.

Ardern said, “The proposal, as it stands, means New Zealand’s farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions,” The Guardian reported.

Under the proposed scheme, by 2025 farmers who meet the requirements will have to pay a levy to the government on advice from the Climate Change Commission. However, the government rejected the idea of farmers deciding on the price.

The money will then go toward infrastructure and technological development. By 2030, the cabinet is expected to have ratified the agreement.

Farmers anger

farmers in New Zealand condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industry’s main lobby group, said the plan would “rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand” and see farms replaced with trees.

Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that wouldn’t decrease food production.

“Our plan was to keep farmers farming,” Hoggard said. Instead, he said farmers would be selling their farms “so fast you won’t even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute (pickup truck) as they drive off.”

New Zealand’s farming industry is vital to its economy. Dairy products, including those used to make infant formula in China, are the nation’s largest export earner.

There are just 5 million people in New Zealand but some 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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