Meat tax: Will Germans swallow higher prices?
Green Party's Renate Künast: We subsidize mass livestock farming with hard-earned taxpayer money. The true cost of inexpensive meat is far higher when taking the health and environmental consequences of factory farming into account.
SABINE KINKARTZ: ‘Eating meat has long been considered a sign of prosperity in Germany and regularly putting a “Sunday roast” on the table meant that things were going particularly well for a family… The meat industry is a major economic sector in Germany with the 25 largest meat companies generating sales just shy of €27 billion in 2018…
The low prices are not only because meat, like bread, fruits and vegetables, is considered a staple food item and therefore subject to a reduced value-added tax (VAT) rate of 7% instead of the standard 19%. Instead, it is largely because production is cheap and prolific… Critics have accused meat companies of maximizing profits at the expense of poorly paid farm and slaughterhouse workers and the animals’ welfare…
In Germany, the Animal Welfare Act applies to livestock, but hidden-camera photos and videos released by animal protection organizations have shown that the majority of animals suffer on industrial farms. The images show animals in confined spaced where they are unable to move freely and where the key concern is getting them to slaughtering weight as quickly as possible.
Martin Hofstetter from Greenpeace said Germany’s regulations are “more lax,” whereas in other EU countries farmers are required to allocate more space for rearing pigs than in Germany. He also said regulations on the amounts of liquid manure and the use of drugs and antibiotics are more tightly controlled in other countries. “This development was politically intended in order to make Germany a world champion exporter of cheap meat products,” said Hofstetter…
Eating meat has long been considered a sign of prosperity in Germany and regularly putting a “Sunday roast” on the table meant that things were going particularly well for a family. Between 1961 and 2011, meat consumption rose from 64 kilograms to 90 kilograms per person per year… in the supermarket, if they believe no one is watching, most still tend to choose cheaper meat over the more animal and environmentally friendly organic products that tend to cost more than four times that of the conventional meats. Would that change if meat became more expensive?
Politicians, as well as environmentalists and animal rights activists, have floated the idea of increasing the value-added tax (VAT) rate for meat and animal products from 7% to 19%. And while there is some agreement on the possibility of changing the tax rate, groups on the left and right disagree on how to spend the potential tax income. While some want to earmark the money to improve animal welfare, others want farmers and workers to see an increase in benefits…
Green party parliamentarian Renate Künast said she favors targeting the tax advantages provided to meat producers. “We subsidize mass livestock farming with hard-earned taxpayer money,” she told the daily Rheinische Post, adding that the true cost of inexpensive meat is far higher when taking the health and environmental consequences of factory farming into account.
That toll, Künast said, should include the costs of climate pollution due to high livestock numbers, the cost of treating health problems from too much exposure to antibiotics from pork and rising groundwater prices due to nitrate pollution. Only after factoring in those costs could “fair comparison” be made be between conventional and organic meat be made, she said’. SOURCE…
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