Good Food and Ground Rent
How a land value tax could root a food security based economy There is a quiet contradiction at the heart of most discussions about sustainable and relocalized food. Advocates speak passionately about shortening supply chains, restoring small farms, rebuilding market gardens on the urban fringe, and reconnecting communities with the land that feeds them. Yet the economics of land itself — its cost, its ownership, its speculation — are rarely interrogated with equal passion. This is a serious omission, because the price of land is one of the most powerful forces shaping what gets grown, where, by whom, and for whom. A national Land Value Tax (LVT) — or what we might more plainly call a National Ground Rent — would strike directly at this neglected root, and in doing so, would transform the economic landscape for relocalized, sustainable, secure food production. The unsustainable food system is based on a core land rights problem. To understand why LVT matters for food, we first ne...