“prefer not to have any solar, but if we don’t have it, we won’t have the ability to keep this farm going,”
116,000 farms had solar panels in 2022, a 30% jump from five years prior
solar as 40% of US electricity would require 5.7 million acres…less than 1% of America’s some 880 million acres of farmland.
estimates $1,200 per acre annually in a solar lease.
lackluster crop markets mean farmers are estimated to lose more than $100 per acre planting corn in Illinois
believes solar development should be taking place on the least-productive land, but as farms have to determine what’s best for their businesses it’s leading to a “checkerboard kind of pattern of solar development covering up really great farmland.”
plans to triple the amount of solar on his land — covering about 15% of the total acreage — as panels offer a kind of insurance to the farming business
look at it as almost another crop