Wellington, New Zealand: The New Zealand government plans to tax greenhouse gases produced by farm animals peeing and burping as part of a plan to combat climate change.
The government said the farm levy would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recover the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products.
But farmers quickly condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industry's main lobby group, said the plan would "rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand" and see farms replaced with trees.
Opposition lawmakers from the conservative ACT Party said the plan would actually increase worldwide emissions by moving farming to other countries that were less efficient at making food.
New Zealand's agricultural industry is vital to its economy. In China, dairy products, including those used to make infant formula, are the country's biggest export earner.
New Zealand has only 5 million people, but about 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep.
Farm animals produce planet-warming gases, particularly methane from cattle burps and nitrous oxide from their urine.
In the Netherlands, farmers have dumped hay bales on roads and driven tractors along busy highways to protest government proposals to slash emissions of damaging pollutants.
In New Zealand, the government has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the country carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that plan includes a pledge that it will reduce methane emissions from farm animals by 10% by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050.
Under the government's proposed plan, farmers will start paying for pollution in 2025, with pricing yet to be finalised.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said all money raised from the proposed farm levy would be ploughed back into the industry for new technology, research and incentive payments to farmers.
"New Zealand's farmers will become the first country in the world to reduce agricultural emissions," she added.
Agriculture Minister Damian O'Connor said this was a great opportunity for New Zealand and its farmers.
"Farmers are already feeling the impact of climate change with more severe droughts and floods," O'Connor said. "Leading agricultural emissions is good for the environment and our economy."
The liberal Labor government's proposal harks back to a similar but unsuccessful proposal made by a previous Labor government in 2003 to tax farm animals for their methane emissions.
But after the farmers and the opposition showed strong opposition, the government abandoned this project.
If Ardern's government can't find agreement on the proposal with farmers, who have considerable political sway in New Zealand, it's likely to make it more difficult for Ardern to win reelection next year when the nation goes back to the polls.