'Fart Tax' Causes a Stink

A tax on farting, belching livestock to be introduced by New Zealand to help combat global warming is creating a stink among the country's farmers.

Methane emissions created by grass-munching cows, sheep, deer and goats are believed to account for about half of New Zealand's emissions of greenhouse gases.

Now the country is attempting to clear the air by introducing a levy on pungent emissions by mid-2004.

The tax will fund a new Agriculture Emissions Research body to meet commitments to the Kyoto Protocol global environment agreement.

Farmers are outraged

But farmers are outraged, saying the agricultural sector is already paying for its own research.

The new tax, which will bring in around eight million NZ dollars a year (US$4.5-million) amounted to "overkill", said Jeff Grant, chairman of Meat New Zealand, a livestock industry support organisation.

Tom Lambie, president of agricultural body Federated Farmers, said the levy disadvantaged farmers struggling to compete against less gas-anxious nations. "As far as I'm aware, we're the only country in the world to impose a levy like this," he said.

NZ farmers facing hard times

Jim Eagles, business editor of the New Zealand Herald daily called the levy "unnecessary, unfair and potentially damaging to the economy." New Zealand's farmers are already facing hard times due to a sharp downturn in returns for their produce.

Eagle said factories from industrialised nations, not herds of cattle and sheep, were the main cause behind the increase in global warming, he said.

New Zealand is home to around 45 million sheep and 9.6 million cattle, according to Statistics New Zealand.
New Zealand Herald, 20th June 2003

Fart Tax Gone, Farmers Celebrate

Farmers are welcoming the government's decision to abandon its plan to levy farmers for emissions research.

Government ministers said they had agreed to a research programme sufficient to remove the need for a statutory levy on individual sheep, cattle and deer.

Federated Farmers of New Zealand vice-president Charlie Pedersen says the farming community has fought hard in recent months - staging FART-tax rallies and assembling a petition with 65,000 signatures - to show government that the emissions charge was a ridiculous burden.

"Farmers will be relieved that the government looks to have finally got the FART tax out of its system," Pedersen says.

He says farmers pay $77 million a year in voluntary levies, much of which funds a wide range of research benefiting not only farmers but all New Zealanders. Research delivers productivity gains, which in turn benefit the environment.

Farmers said they would not pay the tax and only support research that made sense. As such abandoning the FART tax is a fantastic victory for farmers.

However, Pedersen warns that although farmers have won a battle against ridiculous taxes, it had not won the regulatory war over greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon tax and other "way-out" ideas still loom as threats to the farming community, he says.
New Zealand Herald, 16th October 2003