Have you actually run the numbers? Land value tax would most likely reduce the taxes on most farms, the vast majority of land value is concentrated in urban spaces. The majority of farmland is almost certainly getting a tax break under a land value tax regime, especially if its used to offset existing sales and income tax.

Further, while land value tax would reduce the average tax burden on the average farmer, it would change the incentives because it would make passively holding onto land less valuable of an activity on the margin even if there's a net savings to the average farmer.

I'm not a fan of factory farming either, but the point you're missing is that the kind of agricultural strategy you and I don't like optimizes NOT for highest yield per acre, but highest yield per dollar of input.

Efficiency is not mono-dimensional, it's not about "more efficiency" it's about "more efficient AT WHAT." And what industrial farming is efficient at is not using money and not using human labor. One of the chief ways it does this is externalizing most of its costs (pesticides, herbicides, runoff, erosion, antibiotics, etc), and grabbing up more land to make up for its lower per-acre efficiency.

Whether it reduces tax depends on the specific tax rates. I’m not inquiring about whether it will reduce or increase taxes for farmers, but what kind of farming it incentivizes. If your taxes increase per unit land area, it incentivizes higher density agriculture which is generally going to lean more on chemicals and antibiotics (organic and free range). Unless LVT also increases the costs of inputs and labor, I don’t see how it could possibly incentivize better farming practices.

> Whether it reduces tax depends on the specific tax rates.

Well, of course, but surely the comparison is with regard to total tax receipts.

It’s not even that. LVT is one of these magical solutions to problems similar to the gold standard for goldbugs.

The reality is that it’s a highly regressive tax. Taxes shouldn’t be a prime driver of economic activity.