Under the new tax framework, landowners will pay based on their emissions from livestock, fertiliser, forestry and the disturbance of carbon-rich agricultural soils.
One of the main sources of CO2 emissions in the Danish agricultural sector is the drainage and cultivation of former wetlands. Rewilding these is a major strategy for reducing the sector’s emissions."
You're making it sound like Denmark just put an end to all farming.
It's not a tax on farming, it's a tax on emissions. Denmark has an effective tax on nearly 70% of its greenhouse gas emissions, one could argue that it would be unfair to exempt farming.
@CelloMomOnCars@kevinrj Got it, but I'd argue if anyone gets any sort of break on emissions it probably should be farmers, as they grow the food we eat. We ultimately don't need energy from burning fossil fuels, but we all do need to eat. Maybe I'm saying food should be protected somewhat.
We need the food, and we need the food to be grown without carbon and nitrogen emissions, both of which are deleterious to farm yields in the long run.
As an example, a tax on emissions nudges farmers toward electrification. The farmers who have managed to make that transition have been very happy with the money savings (and it's probably better for their lungs, too).
@CelloMomOnCars@kevinrj Yep. I agree, so, perhaps, instead of regressive behaviors like taxation, why don't we just decide we mean what we say. Let's give our farmers the updated electrified equipment and simply confiscate the old gas guzzlers?
Extraordinary: this cooperation between farmers, nature groups, and government bucks the current European trend of headbutting among such groups. Doing this will pay off in so many ways.
"The agreement earmarks DKK 40 billion [US $ 5.8 bn] for a new fund to provide subsidies for this type of rewilding. It also pledges to raise 250,000 hectares of new forest, 100,000 of which must be ‘untouched’, ie. with no forestry operations."
#Denmark's agricultural tax covers "emissions from livestock, fertiliser, forestry and the disturbance of carbon-rich agricultural soils", and the lede is " earmarks billions for rewilding ".
But this highly complex, difficult, and positive achievement is framed in the English language press merely as a "tax on cows".
Tells you something about the willingness to strike compromise agreement, and the importance of the press in getting broad support for it.
English-language journalists:
It's really not that hard to find local coverage, then throw it into a translator.
The end result may be a "tax on cows" - and that is certainly news - but the REAL news here is that a country managed to hammer out an extremely fractious and difficult agreement. THAT is what needs highlighting right now.
Because it's awesome.
No other country has managed it so far.
According to the study, the soil quality and biodiversity on the permaculture plots was distinctly higher compared to the surrounding conventional agricultural land as well as compared to the literature values for conventional agriculture."
@CelloMomOnCars I haven’t followed the details super closely, but I got the distinct impression that the farmers really weren’t happy about it at all, so “co-operation” sounds like a stretch. But it could easily be that you have been following it all more closely than I have :)
I don't know what went on in the negotiations, but one data point is that Danish farmers have not taken to the streets in the kind of tractor protests that have happened all over Europe.
Also it's good to remember that "farmers" are not a monolithic whole, and have a variety of opinions.
For instance in the Netherlands a large majority of farmers say they want to farm more sustainably; it's a small minority (but on big tractors) that get all the news coverage.
@CelloMomOnCars Depends what you mean by “take to the streets”, but they did converge en masse on Christiansborg, the seat of parliament. Though let me just check which issue that was over …
@CelloMomOnCars Ah yes that was about the PM’s apparently-unlawful decree that, because of Covid, all mink in Denmark were to be destroyed (November 2020).
There was apparently some talk of a repeat tractors-to-Christiansborg demo over the CO2 thing, but I’m not sure it came to anything. Perhaps not helped by comparing the CO2 charge to ethnic cleansing. https://agriwatch.dk/Nyheder/politik/article16839739.ece