Locavore

What is a locavore? It’s a part of the concept of local purchasing and local economies and a preference to buy locally produced goods and services. Those who prefer to eat locally grown/produced food.

There are twenty-six farms in Hampden County alone and there are 34 Buying Clubs or Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s) in Massachusetts, http://www.organicconsumers.org/which generally use environmentally sustainable, biodynamic growing techniques using no pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers of any kind. They see their farms as a living system, where its elements work together to build and maintain soil fertility. Through a balanced crop rotation and a strict composting and cover cropping system, they leave the land better than they found it.

Personally, I buy all of my spring, summer and fall produce locally and I’m considering sponsoring a Locavore Challenge to area residents, (see the 100-Mile Diet below).

A locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius such as 50, 100, or 150 miles. The locavore movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to produce their own food, with the argument that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Local grown food is an environmentally friendly means of obtaining food, since supermarkets that import their food use more fossil fuels and non-renewable resources.

“Locavore” was coined by Jessica Prentice from San Francisco Bay Area on the occasion of World Environment Day, 2005 to describe and promote the practice of eating a diet consisting of food harvested from within an area most commonly bound by a 100 mile radius. The word "Localvore" is sometimes also used. The New Oxford American Dictionary chose locavore, a person who seeks out locally produced food, as its word of the year 2007. The local foods movement is gaining momentum as people discover that the best-tasting and most sustainable choices are foods that are fresh, seasonal, and grown close to home. Some locavores draw inspiration from the 100-Mile Diet or from advocates of local eating like Barbara Kingsolver. Others just follow their taste buds to farmers' markets, community supported agriculture programs, and community gardens.

Another effect is the increase in food quality and taste. Locally grown fresh food is consumed almost immediately after harvest, so it is sold fresher and usually riper, as it would be from a home garden. Also, the need for chemical preservatives and irradiation to artificially extend shelf life is reduced or eliminated.

So, why am I writing about this on a Republican Blog? Because I believe we should encourage our Massachusetts lawmakers to actively oppose legislation, which burdens family farms with an estate tax, which in some cases will prevent that farm from remaining in a family and may be forced to close. 2010 will see the tax completely repealed, while in 2011, the tax will be reinstated at a federal exemption level of $1 million per person. The reason for this flip-flopping is that Congress didn't have the votes to permanently push through such a tax cut, so it settled for a temporary fix that passes the buck of settling the matter to the future lawmakers.

The Massachusetts estate tax is “decoupled” from the federal estate tax system. So that any tax demanded from the IRS is viewed as a credit by Massachusetts. While the Massachusetts credit for tax paid in another jurisdiction appears to prevent multiple state death taxes from being imposed on the property of a Massachusetts resident decedent, it does not prevent Massachusetts from effectively taxing a resident decedent’s property located outside of Massachusetts.

Under the current Massachusetts estate tax, the amount of the tax payable by the estate of a resident decedent is equal to the amount of the credit for state death taxes that would have been allowable by the resident decedent’s estate computed under Internal Revenue Code. For example, a Massachusetts resident decedent who owned Massachusetts real estate valued at $5,000,000 and Florida real estate valued at $5,000,000, calculates his estate tax starting with a gross estate of $10,000,000.
Assuming no deductions, the Massachusetts estate tax is calculated as follows:

Taxable Estate $ 10,000,000
Less: $60,000 per IRC § 2011(b)(3) (60,000)
Adjusted Taxable Estate $ 9,940,000
Times: Effective Tax Rate 10.74%
Total Massachusetts Estate Tax $ 1,067,600

There appears to be evidence that this is unconstitutional.

Let’s do all we can to preserve our family owned farms in Massachusetts, first by trading with them and then by giving our lawmakers a little home-grown direction.

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