Peter Smith

At the recent Oxford Real Farming Conference a spat broke out between farmers and rewilding advocate George Monbiot as reported in the Farmers Guardian. "Tenant farmer Rebecca Hosking, who runs the organic Village Farm in south Devon, said while she would be ‘proud’ to farm without subsidy, she needed it to cover her farm rent cheque.  Ms Hosting reported comments, while I am sure not supported by herself, shows how the Farmers Guardian seems blissfully unaware, or is it convenient for them to obfuscate the truth, that most of a farmers rent is the farming subsidies they received as well as the indirect subsidies they do not.  So farming subsidies makes tenant farmers no better off at all. This is shown easily when looking to rent land (or buy land as it is capitalised into vastly inflated land prices). Agricultural land is offered for rent at two prices. One price where the subsidy is claimed by the landowner and another collected by the tenant. The difference is exactl...

A landowner took great umbrage at my last post and asked a number of clarifications, mostly saying farming would be uneconomic and not understanding the economics at play. Under LVT most taxes would of course fall on towns and cities probably about 97%. Most farmers, especially tenant farmers would be much better off when you take into account increased demand and a reduction on taxes on farm labour, profits and selling their produce. But it is a very complex economic picture as some farming below the margin would be forced out and the land rewilded and income just because you own land, the monopoly of land ownership, would be greatly reduced. This was my response to him: I have answered your questions (the logical ones) you just have not understood the answer which takes an open mind and a lot of understanding of the processes of land economics. Something I cannot teach you in a comments exchange such as this If any of the farms around you are tenant farms and are still economi...

Monbiot's best article yet on public policy failure, flooding, rewilding and beavers was published in his Guardian Blog, today please read: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2016/jan/07/liz-truss-is-choosing-to-protect-farmers-over-flood-victims#comment-66312607 This government is a shambles and Monbiot is right on the money but Monbiot needs to further explore  their relationship with landowners and why its is at the heart of all the wildlife, housing, infrastructure, social & poverty problems we face today! The best method to remedy this is not by land redistribution but by a land value tax. equal to the lands unimproved rent. Just like Henry George proposed. This will achieve all that our country needs in housing, poverty reduction, jobs, economic growth and wildlife protection in an efficient manner. Also it will economically push marginal land out of production and become the rewilded uplands & floodplains to protect us from flooding.. Enjoy ...