Eat the View: Tax Breaks for Gardens
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.18.08
Some governments hand out grants and tax breaks if you install solar panels; others if you buy hybrid and efficient cars; if you are a commercial farmer you get subsidies and tax breaks galore. Certainly right now the Feds are in full bailout mode, what about a little help with food prices?
Roger Doiron, the director of Kitchen Gardeners International, has a great suggestion: "We give tax breaks to people to encourage them to put hybrid cars in their garages and solar panels on their roofs, so why not a tax break to encourage environmentally friendly and healthy food production?" He likened his plan to deducting the square footage of a home office: the bigger your garden, the better the tax break. Those with no yard could deduct the rental fee for a community garden plot. ::Barbara Damrosch in the Washington Post
Having a garden is a tremendous economical advantage as is. However I see problems with benefits based on the land area approach...
My father is a farmer and growing up we would typically have several acres of garden which we shared with my family, often more garden space than the majority of the total land city dwellers owned. With compact gardening techniques (SFG) you can grow more with less land than traditional row planting. The only fair way would be based on yield and even then you run into problems.
However, the deductible community garden plot fees is a great idea to promote local growing for residents of urban areas. I see NO downsides to this.
I don' t know if the laws in the states have changed but currently housing developments (cookie cutter mcmansions) that are built on former farmland get taxbreaks from agricultural subsidies because they are on farmland.
That's really besides the point. Portioning part of the lawn for a garden and receiving a tax break is a great idea. However I'm thinking this opens up a whole lot of fraud as people claim garden space but neglect their yard or start a garden and give up after realizing it's so much work.
Maybe something like a garden permit which people buy and after three years of showing they have constantly held a productive garden they get a refund on the permit and can deduct a sizable percentage from their property tax. In the meantime the money from the permits can go to community projects. It'll work kinda like a government savings bond.
Something I'd actually vote for.
My grandmother maintained a vegetable garden until she could not longer handle it anymore, I think the 90's. She was a country girl who lived in the city. I thought it is neat how she maintained her 'country roots'. I later learned in school about "Liberty Gardens". It was patriot (not to mention essential) to grow your own food during the 40's (and later) because of rationing.
I was eating organic as a child and didn't know it. We had low food miles and didn't realize it. Sometimes the old ways are better for us.