Duncan Pickard
Scottish farmer and former university lecturer whose book Lie of the Land (2004) argues, from first-hand farming experience, that taxing land value and abolishing taxes on wages and savings would deliver a fairer deal for farmers than the current subsidy system.
Overview
Duncan Pickard holds a doctorate from the University of Nottingham and, after postdoctoral research at Cornell University's School of Veterinary Medicine and the Mayo Clinic, was appointed lecturer in Animal Physiology and Nutrition at the University of Leeds before leaving academia to farm full-time.[1] He now farms roughly 600 acres in Fife, Scotland, with his wife and sons.[1] He is a practitioner voice within the Georgist tradition: his book Lie of the Land: A Study in the Culture of Deception (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2004) argues that farm subsidies mask a tax regime that drives people off the land, and proposes taxing land value while abolishing taxes on wages and on savings invested in land as "the path to sustainable farming and conservation of the environment."[1][2]
Pickard's case matters to this wiki as first-hand testimony from a working farmer answering the objection that a land value tax would hurt farmers: he argues from his own balance sheet that it is the current subsidy-and-tax system — not a shift to LVT — that concentrates land in fewer hands and burdens smaller producers, since subsidies become a "war chest for the big landowners" to buy more land.[1]
See Also
- LVT Would Hurt Farmers and Rural Landowners (objection) — the objection Pickard's farming experience directly addresses
- Land Value Tax
- Melichar (1979): Farm Income and Asset Values — a complementary academic look at farmland asset values and income
Sources
- Shepheard-Walwyn Publishers, product page for Lie of the Land by Duncan Pickard (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2004, ISBN 978-0-85683-227-7) — https://shepheardwalwyn.com/product/lie-of-the-land/ — used for Pickard's biography (Nottingham PhD, Cornell/Mayo Clinic postdoctoral work, Leeds lectureship, Fife farm) and for the book's argument and quoted phrasing.
- Land Value Tax Campaign, "The Need for Radical Tax Reform," article by Duncan Pickard — https://landvaluetax.org/comment/current-affairs/taxation/the-need-for-radical-tax-reform-article-by-duncan-pickard/ — used to confirm Pickard's public advocacy of land value taxation as a practicing farmer.