|
Southern Alberta | If you want to make land and farming more affordable for everyone, the rules must be changed on how farms are taxed and land is rolled over from generation to generation. If farms could not move land/machinery/inventory/etc to the next generation, but must pay full tax at time of retirement, the land prices would quickly come into line. The problem with most parts of agriculture is that it does not get sold and change enough. If there was more land on the market, the prices would come more into realist prices and rents. By changing how taxation occurs for farmers and investors, it would make everyone revalue their land. Lots of farms are running on land that has paid 5-10% of current assessments. Most farms can only survive if there is a huge amount of help from previous generations on the farm.
Why shouldn't farms have the ability to pay shareholder returns, a ceo wage and worker wages. Gov't policy has a lot to do with this. In my local area the green and red machinery dealers are turning into 6-12 store units. These mega machine dealers have shares listed on public exchanges and now pay shareholder returns and more management and accounting expenses than before. Still seem to get the same machine deals to the farmer as before. Perhaps we need 20-40 individual farms to join under a corporate banner and go public. Each farm could benefit from economies of scale on inputs and sales, have a great expansion or retirement plan from public shares and still retain some of the day to day part of their farms that we all like. This would be much preferable to some big pension fund owning all the farmland in the area. | |
|
who will own the land
