Hot air rises as farmers let fly at the flatulence tax

About 200 farmers from the lower half of the North Island converged on Palmerston North yesterday to attack a Government proposal for a levy to fund research into reducing greenhouse gases - the so-called "flatulence tax".

"We've said no," Taranaki farmer Don Harvey told Government officials. "How many times do we have to say no before you understand the meaning of the word?"

Another farmer added: "This whole thing is a nonsense. We are not going to pay it. We will be very annoyed if the Government tries to impose it."

Farm Forestry Association national president Denis Hocking said New Zealand would be in "carbon credit" when the greenhouse gas-reducing Kyoto Protocol came into effect because of forestry plantations. But farmers were not being paid carbon credits for trees they owned because those credits were nationalised.

"There's no acknowledgement that farmers are providing a major part of the carbon sink credits. Technically, we have covered the issue already," he said.

AgResearch scientist Harry Clark, who is working on measuring the methane levels of ruminant animals, said the research which the levy would fund was high-risk.

The problem could be reduced by feeding grain, but this would not be cost-effective in New Zealand.

There was more meat and wool being produced in the sheep industry than 10 years ago, with 20 per cent less methane overall because of the lower number of sheep, he said. However the methane output per sheep had increased in that time.

Farmers also met in Hamilton yesterday and meetings in Christchurch and Dunedin are planned.

Taranaki Federated Farmers senior vice president Bryan Hocken said: "If the Government goes ahead with this tax, farmers will demand to know whether officials will be using agricultural census information that we were told was confidential?

"The use of confidential statistics will undermine the credibility and independence of Statistics NZ. It's time that the Government realised that agriculture is still the backbone of this country."

Cabinet Minister Pete Hodgson, the convenor of the ministerial group on climate change, claimed Federated Farmers was waging a "disinformation campaign".

"Federated Farmers knows that the Government has exempted agriculture from emissions charges - the 'carbon tax' - but is telling its members and the public that farmers are being taxed on emissions," he said.

Flatulence tax

* The Government plans to put a 72c annual levy on cattle and 9c on sheep to help pay for research
into lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

* The tax will cost most farmers about $300 a year, collecting $8 million nationally.

- NZPA