Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2018, 64(6):256-264 | DOI: 10.17221/270/2016-AGRICECON

A global meat tax: from big data to a double dividendOriginal Paper

Jarka CHLOUPKOVA*,1, Gert Tinggaard SVENDSEN2, Tomas ZDECHOVSKY3
1 European Commission and European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium
2 Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark
3 European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) emphasizes the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food in its Rome Declaration. This article suggests how this noble FAO goal can be achieved. We suggest that a first step could be the introduction of a global meat tax, where the size of the negative externalities from meat production could be calculated based on foresight and big data. Applying the tool of a global meat tax will lead to a "double dividend" as negative externalities are reduced and at the same time huge tax revenues will be generated which could be used to make further steps in the direction of achieving the stated FAO goal in the Rome Declaration.

Keywords: climate change, environment, ethics, European Union (EU), food, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), foresight, health, human health, meat consumption, negative externalities, poverty, World Trade Organization (WTO)

Published: June 30, 2018  Show citation

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CHLOUPKOVA J, SVENDSEN GT, ZDECHOVSKY T. A global meat tax: from big data to a double dividend. Agric. Econ. - Czech. 2018;64(6):256-264. doi: 10.17221/270/2016-AGRICECON.
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