If you have real use for the land, paying the lvt won’t be an issue. If you can’t use it efficiently, an lvt will incentivise you to sell what you don’t use.
Okay, then all the more reason for those farms to sell off some unused acres to alleviate what little pent-up demand there is. And if there are no unused acres, then it's best to work on getting more productivity per acre to make some unused acres.
The agricultural sector is in dire need of a kick in the rear to encourage better land efficiency; LVT is one heck of a kick.
> Farm land just sits there.
Then it ain't a farm, in which case all the more reason to sell off that land and make it available to someone else.
> It doesn't "cost" the local town/county anything.
It imposes an opportunity cost on everyone who would more effectively use that land, including other farmers with better methods (and also, more broadly, anyone else wanting places to live and/or work and/or play).
Also, when I lived in a rural township there weren't any household services, the township did things like look after a couple of roads and zoning and had a little park. We had a well and septic and contracted with a private trash hauler.
If those 100 farms take up the same land area as 1000 households, then yes they absolutely should. Hell, they'll even have an easier time doing so, since they're (ostensibly) using that land productively (and if not, they absolutely should be) and thus be more able to internalize that opportunity cost they've imposed on others.
And if they can't produce enough to internalize that opportunity cost, then all the more reason for someone else to be given the opportunity to do so.