2) I suggest we extend the farm tax rate to those with around 0.5-1 acre or more of land, who show they are operating as a small scale farm to increase local food availability.

Currently I live in rural Tucson, Arizona where we have begun to farm a small portion of two 5 acre lots. The name of the farm is ReZoNation, is based on a whole systems (permaculture) approach, and natural beekeeping is my specialty.

The Arizona Revised Statutes gives the local assessor the authority to “overlook” the law which requires that a farm be twenty acres or more in combined size, and has been operating as a farm for at least 7 years before it can be granted the lower farm tax rate.

If small scale sustainable agriculture is to be successful, and if we wish to increase regional food security, we have to encourage rural families on larger parcels of land just outside major metro areas to farm. We can do this by providing the financial incentive by significantly lowering their property tax and making it easier on them financially. We pay approximately $1200 per year for the rural (Rural Homestead (RH)) zoned 5 acres that has the home, and an additional $550 per year for the adjacent 5 acres that has no home (yet). Right now that is equivalent to 4 mortgage payments per year, provides us a fraction of the government services that our urban neighbors are used to, and requires us to stay employed instead of putting that time into making the land productive.

Personally, I am hoping my local jurisdictions soon become unable to enforce zoning laws due to budget deficits that have no where to go but up. They are so understaffed at this point that I think we are nearing this scenario. This means that we will most likely have to become the protectors (enforcers) of how our land is used.

I have 10 years experience in land development/civil engineering.

Here in Wyoming, we have a proud tradition of ignoring those laws that don’t suit us. Our town has a law from 1864 that prohibits the carrying of firearms within town limits. We do it anyway. The town cop doesn’t bother anyone with it because it’s a stupid law and everyone knows it.

In lots smaller than 1/2 acre, livestock are not permitted including poultry, geese, etc. People keep chickens anyway. So long as you don’t have a rooster waking everyone up at all hours, nobody cares. I asked the town historian and she said this was enacted in the late 1800s because subletting was common and tiny lots with cows on them don’t work well.

When we lived in the big city (we’ll never go back) in Utah, it was relatively the same. They were more Nazi-esque about enFORCEment, but the zoning laws were all old and usually for the same kinds of reasons. The difference there versus here was that the cops weren’t shy about making threats, throwing out huge fines, and being general a-holes about it. In our neighborhood, though, we told them to shove off and successfully kept our front yard gardens (most of us had no back yard) and poultry and one guy even had bees.

Once again, just do it and screw them. If they come after you, make to the press about being the little guy just wanting to live a better life and getting screwed by The Man. They eat that up and make life suck for the establishment. Worked for us.

If more Americans did this sort of thing (you know, acted like Americans), we wouldn’t have all of this crap going on around us. Mass compliance with stupidity is the surest way to become a slave. Worry less about the bureaucrats and more about yourself.

Recently we had 2 dogs maul a lady walking on the footpath, just a block from where I live. I have spent all of 2009 warning council large dogs are roaming in increasing numbers in this area. I met with the Mayor just the day before the attack, to plead my case. No sympathy. They don’t want to offend dog owners. Of course my concerns about wandering dogs related to my small animals (chickens and guard geese) which council view disapprovingly. (I notice neighbourhood chicken nos. are on the rise around me).

And why do I even have guard geese? That’s a whole other story. Both stories involved govts providing housing for “the needy” who turn out to be less than needy, less than sociable and not people you want with large dogs vaguely attached to their households. In the latest case the guy keeps the dogs to slow the police down in a drug raid and sools them on to passers-by for sport.

I truly wish we had more focus on domestic food production systems and less on large dogs as status symbols. My roosters have to be licenced in case their night time crowing causes offense but if your dog mauls a 59 y o lady walking down a street in broad daylight, you’re home clear.

Sorry I’m ranting but this whole subject is one I read about periodically on USA websites and see unfolding here. We don’t have homeowners assocs (thanks be to G-d) but we don’t have right to farm laws either. I dare not even use the word ‘farm’ on my web page – read it yourself, do you see the word ‘farm’ there? No, you see, ‘food production systems’ instead.

Gee I hope you guys can pull off some ‘right to farm’ laws, I’ll be watching you closely.

Dogear6, I’ve got a neighbor who lives in a trailer on his sister’s land with about 14 dogs, that he does not restrain and sometimes gets drunk and shoots at deer through his windows – on good days he opens them . So yeah, there are bad, stupid, incompetent neighbors everywhere. And if you don’t think your lot can sustain more animals, you shouldn’t have them – the point of this is to assume that most people will have common sense, and that the burden of proving a nuisance should be on the petitioner. It doesn’t mean that farmers in the country or the city should be able to do anything they want – no one wants a confinement hog operation in their city lot, for example. I tend to agree with Brad that most pigs (except dwarf breeds) should be classified as large livestock and restricted to large lots – 1/2 acre, perhaps. But I would never suggest that people who believe their lot is at animal carrying capacity increase their production – that’s how we got into this mess.

Susan, I was hoping you’d comment on this – thank you. I know it is probably a pipe dream, and that zoning laws are a mess, but I still think there’s something to be said for a national right to farm movement for cities that offer some kind of broad template. After all, much of the present reconsideration of zoning in any given city is based on “well X and Y and Z city allow this and this…” – bringing that information together and giving people the tools to use it would help in a lot of little battles, even if it won’t fix everything for everyone.

Sharon