If you’re a farmer and you’re reading this, I’m sorry, because the New Zealand government wants to slap a tax on the uncouth noises your livestock makes.
As per The Sydney Morning Herald, the country’s government has proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses emitted by farm animals in a bid to tackle climate change.
Under the proposed plan, anytime a cow burps or pees, their owner will cop a small fee. It would be a world first, but some farmers are unsurprisingly upset about it.
Federated Farmers, the industry’s main lobby group, insisted the proposed plan would “rip the guts out of small town New Zealand” and lead to farms being replaced with trees.
According to the group’s President Andrew Hoggard, the country’s farmers had spent several years attempting to cooperate with the government on a better emissions reduction plan that wouldn’t decrease food production.
Hoggard says that farmers would end up 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 is such a fascinating country for the world first tax because animals ridiculously outnumber people: there are just five million people in Aotearoa, with a hefty 10 million beef and dairy cattle (and an outrageous 26 million sheep).
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That’s meant that around half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions come from farms, a highly unusual statistic. And with the country’s farming industry being so important to its economy, it’s clear why this is such a concerning issue.
If the proposed plan goes ahead, New Zealand farmers will start paying for animals’ emissions from 2025, with the fees still to be confirmed.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, however, has insisted all the money collected from the proposed plan will be put back into the industry to aid farmers.
For more on this topic, follow the Travel Observer.
