Federated Farmers' Hawke's Bay president is challenging the Prime Minister's assertion that the Emissions Trading Scheme won't be a huge financial burden for individual farmers.
The first part of the scheme comes into force on 1 July.
Kevin Mitchell told Hawke's Bay Federated Farmers annual conference that John Key's suggestion recently that the national scheme will cost each farmer an average of $3000 by 2030 is quite wrong.
He says the effect of the scheme on fuel and transport alone will add tens of thousands of dollars in costs for farmers.
The conference unanimously supported a motion that Federated Farmers national body urge the Government to scrap the scheme in its present form, or at least delay it until Australia adopts a scheme, which won't be until 2013 at the earliest.
