Sorry for calling someone an ass.
The post remains ASININE. I know numerous farmers in Wisconsin and Iowa and they, and their neighbors, would NEVER comply. It won’t happen here.
“I know numerous farmers in Wisconsin and Iowa and they, and their neighbors, would NEVER comply.”
Sure, I think so too, but it wont be so overt as that and it wasn’t in South Africa. The entire black thing is about getting laws passed that are of course unconstitutional, but they also have judges that will delay stopping enforcement.
This is all heavily coordinated across the courts, legislatures, IRS, congress, federal and State agencies, all of it. It will take violence to stop the violence in SA, and it will take violence to stop it here too.
... know numerous farmers in Wisconsin and Iowa and they, and their neighbors, would NEVER comply. It won’t happen here.
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Maybe not in the remaining lifetime of current operators.
First, the government offers easement programs. These limit resale and future financing, but offer tax breaks.
Then, neighbors move in and organize more easements-for-tax-breaks. These are private groups, like Mississippi Conservancy, that inherit upon death. Good for those with no heirs. This lowers tax base and everyone else’s taxes increase.
Almost all the easements prohibit or severely limit farming. They are currently popular/pushed along waterways.
Heirs just want to liquidate, for the most part. New people move in, who have no ties to the land or area.
I’m 77 and in WI. The area I’ve lived for 45 years is trending this way. Our buyers want to preserve the land, which is hills unsuitable for most farming. After them, who knows? Landowners down the road have 250 acres purchased about 10 years ago. They are leaving because they did not find the *community* they sought. They are asking $1M with proviso of no farming. Realtors tell us of large parcel sellers who are rude and insulting to any buyers who want to do anything with the land except permaculture/biodynamics.
I know families where the now-passed generation accumulated and tended large acreages in IA. This land went into a trust for the grandchildren, who simply want all their money right now (30 & 40-year-olds). Their parents are in their 70s. Kids will liquidate ASAP after parents pass on. Kids & parents are big libs, even if parents understand economics better. One of the parents is himself a farmer, 200 acres, barns, outbuildings, an expensive combine. Divorced, estranged from the kids. He’ll sell out at some point, knowing it will otherwise all go to the kids who will sell for whatever they can get. One has a horse hobby that burns money, one will support current owner’s ex-wife (no love lost), one is affluent & 1/2 minority, one is a truck driver in Minneapolis married to a minority. All told, this is about 750 acres of well-tended farmland in WI & IA that will be lost to conservative production within another 20 years.
Watch as incentives are rolled out and people age out of farming, leave no farmer heirs and the original family is soon gone, one way or another.
It will happen. But the land will end up with the government and private conservation groups, not minorities who could care about farming or land and just want the money. The conservancy groups usually sell to government, so far. Over 30-40 years, most of the farmland will be out of private hands.
Want an extreme case? Elderly woman with a long-standing grudge against her neighbors and 200 acres of land divided into forest and pasture, only some suitable for farming, but suitable for livestock (she kept sheep). Independently wealthy, hasn’t worked in 50 years, no heirs, no family, few friends. Is planning on leaving it all to a notorious Chicago street gang (most in prison) in order to give a final finger to the neighbors. The gang will likely designate a minority politician/lawyer as executor/manager.