Denmark is the first country to agree on introducing a tax on climate-damaging emissions from the agricultural sector. Farmers will start paying the tax in 2030.
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00:00Manners, please! The Danish government has recently taken steps against burping cattle.
00:09This is because their belches contain methane, which is harmful to the climate. That's
00:13why Danish farmers are now being taxed for their burping cows.
00:17DW spoke to cattle breeder Christiane Koch in the small village of Christiansfeld. He
00:24has 1,000 hectares of land and owns 1,000 cows. Christiane tells us why cows belch
00:30in the first place.
00:35The problem with cows is that they're ruminants, so the feed passes through several stomachs.
00:44And in the process, methane is produced, which is belched out.
00:52Because methane is even more harmful to the climate than CO2, Denmark is taking action,
00:58charging 40 euros in tax per tonne of methane, roughly what 10 cows emit in a year.
01:04The government, farming lobby and Denmark's largest nature conservation association agreed
01:09on this figure. Denmark's Minister of Agriculture is delighted by the joint decision.
01:16The signal that is clear that the farmers, they have to develop their farms in an even
01:21more green way. We have to take out parts of the farming land, as well as putting up
01:27more forests, for instance. And there we are in a hurry. But I believe that the signal
01:32that we've sent with this agreement will also help doing all these things even faster than
01:38what we have agreed in the agreement itself.
01:42I think that the whole thing has actually gone very well. The fact that they came to
01:46an agreement is positive.
01:49Elsewhere in Europe, there is far less goodwill. In Germany and France, farmers have staged
01:54massive protests in major cities over the smallest of reforms.
02:01I think there's a slightly different mentality in Denmark. We don't want to harass ordinary
02:07citizens and drive around protesting in a tractor.
02:15Giving up arable land and reforesting woods is a big deal for Danish farmers. But it's
02:20needed to improve the quality of Denmark's lakes and fjords, as they're heavily polluted
02:25from excess fertiliser.
02:29Less agriculture near the water means less water pollution.
02:37But Christian Koch also knows that he can lower his tax burden if he uses feed that
02:41causes the cows to burp less.
02:44Even though Denmark's Nature Conservation Association doesn't want farmers switching
02:48feed, it says the agreement is too soft on this point.
02:53Especially that part is not as strong as we would have hoped. We are worried that some
03:02farmers might even not have to pay anything in tax. So we would like to see it stronger.
03:11Even so, in true Danish fashion, all groups agree to the cow deal, despite their different
03:16interests.
03:17In Denmark, we have a long tradition of talking to each other. We're a small country, and
03:24we have what we call the Danish module, where we sit together, the government, the organisations,
03:31in this case the farmers, together with the green organisation, and find the right balance,
03:36find the right compromise.
03:39Christian Fromberg of Greenpeace wasn't part of the talks and is deeply disappointed.
03:45This deal will just keep the number of cows and pigs and so on, on a quite steady level.
03:52So this is not really offering a solution to a much more plant-based agriculture, and
03:56therefore we will not see that our seas will get back on foot with this deal.
04:05The agreement still makes Denmark a Europe-wide and even global pioneer, so Christian Cox
04:11cattle can keep going about their burpy business.