Sustainability groups have welcomed Government’s move to provide tax breaks for people who want to grow their own food.

The Customs Tariff Amendment Act 2015 provides duty relief for people wanting to import “mushroom spawn, strawberry plants and trees of kinds that bear edible fruits or nuts”, to encourage local food production.

The legislation, which was passed this month, has been applauded by the Bermuda Environmental and Sustainability Taskforce.

“BEST is highly supportive of efforts to encourage greater food production locally,” said chairman Stuart Hayward.

“While it is unlikely that Bermuda will ever again be self-sufficient in production, if it ever was, we can only applaud even small steps that will make it easier for Bermudians to have food gardens.

“We are also supportive of the duty reductions that favour commercial farmers.

“Most important is the need to preserve all arable land and encourage its productivity, maybe through incentives to private landowners who allow farmers to work arable land that is presently unfarmed.”

The new Act, which also provided for a five cents a litre rise in fuel duty, was debated in the House of Assembly.

Finance Minister Bob Richards said: “This is consistent with the zero rate of duty that has traditionally applied to other generative materials, such as seed potatoes and seed for sowing.

“As a further incentive to local commercial food production, the Bill proposes to subsume all existing commercial food production reliefs in one harmonised end-use relief.

“There are five separate reliefs for goods for local food production. These include relief for the poultry industry, the dairy industry, commercial fishing, commercial aquaculture, and commercial farming.

“The new duty relief for goods for local food production will extend to all goods imported for use in connection with the local commercial production of animal or vegetable products for human consumption.”