Farmland under attack worldwide and locally

Do you want to live where there is no local food supply?

If you are interested in eating locally, you need to pay attention to zoning regulations and changes of farmland to residential or industrial purposes. In fact, the problem of farmland loss is getting so prevalent that international organizations are trying to raise awareness of the problem. It is both local and international, and here are some links so that you can see for yourself.

Local First

Locally in Kitsap County Washington, it is hard sometimes to determine what is good and what is bad. The question always remains: "What are the gotchas?"

Rural Wooded Incentive Program sounds good on the surface, however trading development credits on a piece of prime land for some poor land allows unequal trades without consequences except to you and me. This is a common practice for farmland, too.

When developers -- the dirt dogs who want to quickly turn an easily developed piece of land to a small financial profit -- nice-sounding pieces of local regulation begin to pop up, like this one: TITLE 21: Land Use and Development Procedures Code Development Process. The first paragraph of this reads " Kitsap County is currently updating Kitsap County Code Title 21 ‘Land Use and Development Procedures’. The goal of the update is to create a more streamlined and user-friendly code." Innocuous or hostile to farmland? That is the question.

Internationally: creating "Blood Food"

As food production is curtailed in other areas of the world, for all food production is local somewhere, supply and economic pressures rise. Famine can be created in areas with farms because all the food is taken somewhere else and sold. There is lots of talk about "blood diamonds," but there is "blood food," too. We read very little about this, but it is happening right now.

Here are several links to articles on this topic (if this blog is over one month old, you may not be able to access these). They are from FT (Financial Times) the world's leading economic newspaper, which is featuring a series of articles called The global food crisis Published: April 13 2008 18:21 | Last updated: May 6 2008 16:29

Tokyo aims to halt ‘farmland grabbing’, By Michiyo Nakamoto in Tokyo and Javier Blas in London, Published: May 25 2009 19:31 | Last updated: May 25 2009 19:31


The global food crisis: Africa almost giving land away, says UN", By Javier Blas in London, Published: May 24 2009 22:05 | Last updated: May 24 2009 22:05

The global food crisis: Food security fuels land grab, says report By Javier Blas in London, Published: May 24 2009 22:05 | Last updated: May 24 2009 22:05

This reminds of Joni Michell's song "Big Yellow Taxi." Her version is awesome, but so is Amy Grant's and Counting Crow's versions. The line of this song that is my theme this issue is "They take Paradise and put up a parking lot."

Sneaky tax on food: Please write you legislator to VOTE NO ON SB5911

As if farming is not hard enough, now WA State legislators are trying to sneak the B&O tax onto farmers. This really is a tax on food, which is not taxed in Washington State.

The Capital Press published this story last week, Ag legislator sends out alert about proposed B&O tax. Kudos to Rep. Mark Schoesler, R- Ritzville, ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture and Rural Development Committee and also a member of the Ways & Means Committee.

The B&O tax taxes Washington State businesses selling within Washington State on the GROSS income not the NET income. It is probably the one tax in Washington that hurts businesses the most. However, if you sell your product outside of the state, you do not pay it on that income, and if you import product into the state, you do not pay it on that income, either. This tax has the potential to cripple or even destroy the locally grown food movement in Washington State.

To read the bill and follow it, click SB5911 progress.

I urge you to steal this letter, which I cribbed from Jackie Aitchison the Manager of the Poulsbo Farmers Market and the director of the Washington State Farmers Market Association. It does not matter which part of the state you live in, please write. If you are outside of the state, go ahead and write too. Plaster the legislature with VOTE NO ON SB5911

HERE IS the letter I sent my state legislators. I sent it to Representatives and Senators alike, since what goes through one chamber tend to go through the other.

I am farmer in Kitsap Country and I ask you to VOTE NO on SB5911.

This bill is a direct tax on food and violates the spirit of the sales tax law that does not tax food.

This bill would be a major setback. It comes at a time when we are trying to nurture and support our local farming community. Our local farming community provides us with family wage jobs, healthy locally grown food, an alternative to the big box economy, and a beautiful rural landscape that can survive in an economically viable form.

This gross income tax ignores the fact that local Washington State farmers are in, at best, a breakeven situation, and may be losing money.

This bill would subject Washington farmers who gross over $200,000 to the state B&O tax. Since the tax is based on gross, rather than net, it completely disregards costs. For most small farmers, meaning most of our farmers here in Kitsap County, this is a regressive tax that puts them at a great disadvantage.

A $200,000 gross represents no personal income for many local farmers because expenses and risks inherent to the business are extremely high.

My husband and I are struggling to grow our small farm income to a level that we are not at risk to support it. We both work outside of the farm to support ourselves. We believe that we will be able to make the farming operation profitable; however this type of regressive taxation makes that task vastly more difficult. This tax allows companies that import food to our state that raised outside of our state, and even outside of our country. Because they will not pay this tax, those companies will be able to compete more effectively against us and sell their product for less than we are able to sell it.

If you are interested in finding out more about how farming in Kitsap County and other counties in our state contributes to our community or hearing the concerns of our farmers and our farmer's markets, I would be happy to arrange something.

Thank you,
Marilyn Holt, Owner
Abundantly Green
1146 NE Madison Road
Poulsbo, WA 98370

The trigger amount looks to be large number to kick in this tax, but it's not: $200,000 Gross receipts is still not enough when it cost more to product that much food, or if you are at break even, or even if you have a marginal profit -- 1% of $200,000 is $2,000 -- can you live on that a year?

Thank you for helping,
Marilyn

Preserving farmland WA St HB 1232 - 2009-10

House Bill HB 1232 - 2009-10 in the Washington State Legislature aimed at preserving farmland. The desciption for HB 1232 - 2009-10 "Defining commercial agricultural purposes to include current farming practices and activities related to the raising, harvesting, feeding, breeding, managing, selling, care, or training of a farm product." Click on the links to read the bill or read a digest of the bill.