UN mulls fart tax for methane belching cows

A UN report has suggested a "fart tax" on cattle as part of a raft of measures that could help tackle greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.

Released yesterday, the report from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) calculated that the world's 1.5 billion cattle and buffalo, 1.8 billion small ruminants, and almost one billion pigs produce methane emissions equivalent to about two billion tons of CO2 every year, or six per cent of all annual greenhouse gas emissions.

It recommends a host of measures to tackle the problem, including a potential tax on methane emissions

The report argues that market-based policies, such as taxes and fees for natural resource use, "should cause producers to internalise the costs of environmental damages caused by livestock production".

It also recommends "subsidies that directly or indirectly promote overgrazing, land degradation, deforestation, overuse of water or GHG emissions should be reduced or eliminated".

A global boom in meat consumption has led to a rapid increase in the size of the world's herds. Meat consumption per capita in China has jumped to 59.5kg per year, up more than threefold from 13.7kg in 1980, while global per capita meat consumption has increased to 41.2kg per year, up 37 per cent from 30kg in 1980.

Overall the report found that livestock production and management now produce seven billion tons of CO2 equivalents a year, which is more than 20 per cent of the total greenhouse gas emissions.

However, it also concluded that the application of new farming techniques and technologies that improve the efficiency of land use could significantly reduce emissions from the sector.

In particular, changes in feed stocks for livestock can reduce methane emissions by as much as 20 per cent, while improved grazing-land management, herd-health management and grazing practices can also help curb emissions contribute to reductions. Supplements are also being developed that experts believe could help to reduce cattle emissions still further.

But the report says that cutting livestock emissions globally will require new initiatives at national and international levels, including the promotion of research, improved monitoring, changes in subsidies and taxes for farmers, and the effective distribution of technology practices.

So-called "fart taxes" have been proposed in the past with then environment secretary David Miliband suggesting that the UK should investigate such measures back in 2007.

However, a levy on methane has tended to be opposed by the farming lobby. In a letter to the Financial Times earlier this month, Jonathan Scurlock climate change adviser at the UK's National Farmer's Union wrote that "the NFU strongly supports research aimed at reducing methane emissions from livestock farming by changing diets, improving productivity and using anaerobic digestion to produce biogas as a low carbon source of energy".

But he added that methane emissions from UK agriculture have already fallen 17 per cent since 1990, while agriculture as a whole only accounts for about seven per cent of the UK’s total GHG emissions.