P. J. Huffstutter and Christopher Walljasper of Reuters tell their readers that as the Biden administration pushes to build up the green infrastructure, they are failing to protect valuable farmland being locked up by solar farms. They write:
Dave Duttlinger’s first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen.
About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery – land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest. […]
“I’ll never be able to grow anything on that field again,” the farmer said. About one-third of his approximately 1,200-acre farm – where his family grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa for cattle – has been leased.
The Dunns Bridge Solar project is a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources LLC, the world’s largest generator of renewable energy from wind and solar. Duttlinger said when he approached NextEra about the damage to his land, the company said it would review any remedial work needed at the end of its contract in 2073, as per the terms of the agreement.[…]
Indiana farmer Norm Welker says he got a better deal leasing 60% of his farmland to Mammoth than he would have growing corn, with prices dipping to three-year lows this year.
“We’ve got mounds of corn, we’re below the cost of production, and right now, if you’re renting land to grow corn – you’re losing money,” Welker said. “This way, my economic circumstances are very good.”
