New Zealand farmers protested Thursday in convoys of tractors in various cities of the oceanic country against the first plan in the world to impose taxes from 2025 on the gas emissions that cause the greenhouse effect through the burps of sheep and cows." 

Without farmers there is no food" read several of the posters carried by an undetermined number of tractors and protesters on foot who took to the streets and highways of cities such as Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, among other locations in the country, according to images published by the New Zealand media." We apologize (for the protests), but the point is that if you have a government that doesn't listen to you, you have to do things to make people aware," said the co-founder of the lobby group Groundswell and one of the protest organizers Bryce McKenzie told Radio New Zealand.

Groundswell assures on its website that the plan will reduce livestock production by 20% and dairy production by 6% without having a significant impact on reducing global emissions, as well as creating a situation in which national farmers are replaced by other "less efficient" foreigners to the country. The Jacinda Ardern Labour government's plan to reduce agricultural emissions, which was presented last week, responds to the oceanic country's efforts to combat the climate crisis and, if approved, would make New Zealand the first country in which Farmers pay for livestock emissions. This plan targets agricultural farming because almost half of the emissions of New Zealand, a country of five million inhabitants, come from this sector, mainly due to its 26 million sheep and 10 million cows, ruminant mammals that expel the methane produced during digestion through their belching and flatulence.

The Wellington Executive, whose goal is to achieve neutrality in polluting emissions by 2050, has submitted its plan to consultations with farmers until November 18, before its deadline expires at the end of the year to decide how it will tax emissions from the sector farmer."We are in the midst of a very genuine (consultation) process," Ardern said, adding that his government wants to "work constructively with our food producers to get the best possible outcome for them and for New Zealand," according to statements. published today by Radio New Zealand.