The U.S. Department of Agriculture is pulling the plug on federal support of solar projects being developed on America’s farmland. The agency announced Tuesday that it would no longer provide taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland.
“Our prime farmland should not be wasted and replaced with green-new-deal-subsidized solar panels,” Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins said in the announcement.
On-the-ground solar energy has some of the greatest land-use requirements of any energy source, coming in after hydroelectric and coal, if the latter’s mines are included. The huge swaths of land needed for solar farms make agricultural farmland attractive to developers. According to the USDA, within the last 30 years, Tennessee alone has lost over 1.2 million acres of farmland to solar farms, with another 2 million acres projected to be lost by 2027.
“Tennesseans know that our farmland is our national security, our economic future, and our children’s heritage,” Tennessee GOP Governor Bill Lee said in a statement.
While solar has seen explosive growth in the past few years, the Trump administration and Congress are cutting back on the subsidies that have been driving a lot of the development. Growth in the coming years could be slower.
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