Prior to 1999, Georgia levied ad valorem taxes for some agricultural commodities, such as fruit and nut trees and livestock. Legislation passed in 1998 relieved small scale farmers of this additional burden. For other crops, such as ornamental trees and shrubs, the possibility of ad valorem taxation was eliminated.

The legislation is noteworthy not because of the tax impact- farmers will save about $ 2.5 million a year, or an average of less than $20,000 per Georgia county- but because it targets those tax cuts to a well defined "family farm" scale agriculture.

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Colleges and Universities, especially the nation’s land grant universities are a perfect laboratory for policies that support locally-grown and/or organic food supplies. The University of Wisconsin’s Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems completed a survey of schools in 1998 and identified a handful that had policies in place that supplied their food service departments with significant quantities of locally grown and/or organic food. Continue reading

In 1967, the Wholesome Meat Inspection Act and the Wholesome Poultry Products Act authorized states with inspection programs certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as "at least equal to" the federal program to inspect meat and poultry products for distribution within a state’s borders. An adversarial relationship between state programs and the USDA and little interest in direct marketing caused many of the programs to be dropped. Today, meat producers interests in niche markets and marketing have resulted in 25 state meat inspection programs being reinstated and expanded across the country. Continue reading

Vermont has passed legislation (VT Act 145 of 2006)that tries to strengthen the connection between schools and local farmers and farm products. Although relatively a small program, the training and food processing programs are excellent features to support local food production. Continue reading