CONTEXT

Most Western-European countries exceed the critical loads for nitrogen (N) losses. High nitrogen (N) inputs make agriculture one of the largest contributors to N pollution. There might be a potential to reduce this losses with an output tax on animal products, as they have low N use efficiency and a tax has the potential to reduce the consumption of this products.

OBJECTIVE

We want to assess the potential of a food tax on animal products to reduce the N surplus of Swiss agriculture.

METHODS

We implemented a tax on meat and a tax on milk and meat in the agent-based model SWISSland. The model combines an agent-based model with a microeconomic model at the farm scale. To better understand the low response of the food tax, we applied in a second step a robust two-step global sensitivity analysis of abatement costs of individual model agents.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Imposing a tax led to an N surplus reduction of 2.1% where only meat was taxed and 2.3% where both milk and meat were taxed. The sensitivity analysis showed that distinct agents reacted non-uniformly to changing prices, so that the effect of the tax was sometimes even cancelled out. This calls for more differentiated policies to reduce the negative impact of N losses.

SIGNIFICANCE

The overall impact of the food tax was minor as the distinct agents react not uniformly to lower producer prices.

中文翻译：

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食品税只会最低限度地减少瑞士农业的 N 盈余

语境

大多数西欧国家都超过了氮 (N) 损失的临界负荷。高氮 (N) 投入使农业成为氮污染的最大来源之一。对动物产品征收输出税可能会减少这种损失，因为它们的氮利用效率低，而且征税有可能减少这种产品的消费。

客观的

我们想评估对动物产品征收食品税以减少瑞士农业氮过剩的潜力。

方法

我们在基于代理的模型 SWISSland 中实施了肉类税和牛奶和肉类税。该模型将基于代理的模型与农场规模的微观经济模型相结合。为了更好地理解食品税的低响应，我们在第二步中对单个模型代理的减排成本进行了稳健的两步全局敏感性分析。

结果和结论

征税导致 N 剩余减少 2.1%（仅对肉类征税）和 2.3%（对牛奶和肉类均征税）。敏感性分析表明，不同的代理人对价格变化的反应不一致，因此有时甚至抵消了税收的影响。这需要更加差异化的政策来减少 N 损失的负面影响。

意义

食品税的总体影响很小，因为不同的代理人对较低的生产者价格的反应并不统一。