![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Taxing-Farm-Animals-Farts-and-Burps-Denmark-Gives-It-a-750x375-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Denmark, known for its inventive restaurants and elegant design studios, is about to become known for something more basic: the world\u2019s first belch and manure tax.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because there are five times as many pigs and cows in Denmark as there are people. Nearly two-thirds of its land is taken up by farming. And agriculture is becoming its largest share of climate pollution, putting lawmakers under intense public pressure to reduce it.<\/p>\n
So now, Denmark\u2019s unlikely coalition government, made up of three parties from across the political spectrum, has agreed to tax the planet-heating methane emissions that all those animals expel through their poop, farts and burps. The measure, under negotiation for years, was passed by the Danish Parliament this month, making it the only such climate levy on livestock in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s good,\u201d said Rasmus Angelsnes, 31, who was shopping for dinner in Copenhagen one recent afternoon. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a nudge to make different choices, maybe more climate-friendly choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Never mind that his shopping cart contained thick slices of pork belly, which he planned to cook that rainy evening with potatoes and parsley. \u201cComfort food,\u201d he said sheepishly.<\/p>\n
The tax is part of a larger package designed to clean up the country\u2019s agricultural pollution and eventually restore some farmland to its natural form, like peat lands, which are exceptionally good at locking away planet-heating gases underground but were drained decades ago to grow crops.<\/p>\n
Denmark\u2019s quest is also part of a reckoning for many agricultural powerhouses, including the United States, as they face calls to clean up pollution from farms, while balancing the needs of politically powerful agricultural lobbies.<\/p>\n
Globally, the food system accounts for a fourth of greenhouses gases, and reducing those emissions requires making tough choices on diets, jobs and industries. At the same time, farmers are vulnerable to the hazards of climate change, with punishing heat, droughts and floods exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels. That makes food a particularly vexing climate problem to take on.<\/p>\n
No wonder that efforts to reduce agriculture\u2019s climate emissions have faced stiff resistance, from Brussels to Delhi to Wellington, where the New Zealand government proposed a burp tax in 2022 only to have a later government scrap it.<\/p>\n
Even Denmark\u2019s measure went through intense political wrangling. An independent panel of experts had laid out several pathways, including a higher tax that the farm lobby vigorously opposed. When the government settled on a plan that would give farmers time and subsidies to bring the tax down, even to zero, environmental campaigners objected, calling it too lax.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood for people, not feed for animals,\u201d read one protest placard in front of the government office, where last-minute negotiations were underway in October.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love minced meat,\u201d heckled some teenagers as they walked past the protesters.<\/p>\n
The measure finally passed in November. Starting in 2030, it will charge farmers 300 Danish kroner (around $43) for every ton of carbon dioxide equivalent that their operations produce. By 2035, the tax will more than double to 750 kroner ($106).<\/p>\n
But unlike a carbon tax on other sectors, farmers will automatically get a rebate of 60 percent because, as Jeppe Bruus, the government\u2019s green transition minister, put it, there isn\u2019t yet technology to eliminate flatulence entirely. Those rebates increase if farmers do things like using feed additives to reduce methane from cow burps or sending pig manure to machines that pipe the methane into the gas grid.<\/p>\n
\u201cA tax on pollution has the aim to change behavior,\u201d Mr. Bruus said.<\/p>\n
It helped that the government negotiating the tax includes the center-right political party, Venstre, which has long advocated for farmers\u2019 interests.<\/p>\n
Europe\u2019s largest dairy cooperative, Arla Foods, has come on board. Not because it favors a tax, company officials said, but because the compromise is something dairy farmers can live with. \u201cThey understand they need to do it; they want to do it,\u201d Peder Tuborgh, the company\u2019s chief executive, said. \u201cThey know it is protecting their reputation, and they\u2019re still producing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jens Christian S\u00f8rensen is one of those dairy farmers who supplies Arla Foods, and he is trying to get a handle on the milk and methane math of his operations. He has nearly 300 milking cows and another 360 calves that don\u2019t yet produce milk, but still produce methane.<\/p>\n
He knows he has to keep his animals healthy to maximize their milk production, which is why he has invested in sensors that tell him if his cows are unwell. He tracks exactly how much they are eating, and how much milk they\u2019re producing.<\/p>\n
He expects to add a chemical supplement that farmers use in other European countries to reduce methane emissions. And he knows that like every other economic sector, farming has to clean its environmental record. \u201cThe dairy industry, we also have to deal with this,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the end of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
His confidence comes from growing global demand.\u00a0Two-thirds of Danish butter<\/a>\u00a0is exported. So is half of all milk powder. And global dairy consumption has risen over the past two decades and is projected to grow, as poorer countries prosper.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want their kids to have milk,\u201d Mr. S\u00f8rensen said.<\/p>\n Meat and dairy consumption\u00a0has remained fairly flat<\/a>\u00a0over\u00a0the past 30 years<\/a>\u00a0throughout Europe. Mr. S\u00f8rensen\u2019s four children want to eat much less meat than he ate growing up, especially beef.<\/p>\n Svend Brodersen is an organic farmer, which means his options are more limited. He can\u2019t use a feed additive. And unlike Mr. S\u00f8rensen\u2019s cows, which stay in the stable, his animals roam the fields and their manure fertilizes the fields. Mr. Brodersen has instead ripped out part of the croplands and planted trees that absorb carbon dioxide and produce fruits that he can sell \u2014 apples, pears, cherries.<\/p>\n He supports the carbon tax nonetheless. \u201cIt\u2019s a chance to show the rest of the world\u201d that farming doesn\u2019t have to mean lots of pollution, he said. \u201cWithout a tax, everyone will do the same tomorrow as they did yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n A bigger, more difficult dilemma still looms: Will Denmark continue to turn over so much of its land to cows and pigs?<\/p>\n Mr. Brodersen is weighing this himself. He expects to use a larger share of his land to grow more plants for human consumption, and a smaller share for dairy. \u201cYou need cows in nature,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you have to find a balance between how much milk and how much vegetables.\u201d<\/p>\n The post\u00a0Taxing Farm Animals\u2019 Farts and Burps? Denmark Gives It a Try.\u00a0<\/a>appeared first on\u00a0New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n