Solar energy depletes farmlands of rich soil

Solar energy is depleting farmland of rich soils in the US Midwest. The solar industry is moving to the U.S. Midwest, attracted by cheaper land leases, access to electricity transmission, huge federal and state incentives and the region’s wide-open fields. But Biden’s renewable energy boom could damage some of America’s richest soils in key agricultural states like Indiana. Reuters based its findings on an analysis of federal, state and local data and hundreds of pages of court records; and interviews with more than 100 energy and soil scientists, agricultural economists, farmers and agricultural landowners, and local, state and federal lawmakers.

According to some agricultural economists and agronomists, withdrawing even small amounts of prime cropland from production to develop solar power plants and destroying valuable topsoil is impacting the future crop potential of the United States. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice, common solar farm construction practices, including clearing and grading of large areas of land, can lead to significant erosion and significant sediment runoff into waterways without appropriate remedial measures.

Solar leasing in Indiana and surrounding states can offer land leases ranging from $900 to $1,500 per acre per year, with annual rate increases. By comparison, farmland leases for top corn and soybean producers in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa averaged about $251 per acre in 2023, according to USDA data. Farmland Partners Inc, a publicly traded agricultural real estate investment trust (REIT), has leased approximately 9,000 acres across the country to solar companies to generate returns for its investors; much of this land was highly fertile for agricultural use.

Some solar project leases are designed to allow crops to be grown between the panels, while others, like Doral Renewables LLC, allow livestock to graze around the panels as part of land management. Some solar developers say that in the Midwest, where more than a third of the U.S. corn crop is used to produce ethanol, solar energy will be key to powering future electric vehicles.

The expansion of photovoltaics comes amid increasing competition for land: There were 76.2 million — or nearly 8 percent — fewer acres on farms in 2023 than in 1997, USDA data shows, as farmland is converted to residential, commercial and industrial purposes. Urban sprawl and development now contribute more to farmland loss than solar energy, according to the USDA, citing Department of Energy reports and agency-funded research. However, with Biden’s rush to solar energy and massive subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act and other regulations, land losses to solar are certain to increase.

Example of crop damage

In 2019, one Indiana farmer leased approximately 445 acres of his 1,200-acre farm near Whitfield to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest. According to the solar panel lease agreement, Dunns Bridge will make “commercially reasonable efforts to minimize any damage to or disruption to crops and farmland caused by construction activities” off the development site and “will not remove topsoil” from the property itself. However, contractors graded the fields to help build roads and install poles and panels, despite warnings that this could make the land more susceptible to erosion. Crews spread fine sand over large areas of rich topsoil. Much of the area beneath the panels is currently covered with yellow-brown sand on which no plants grow. The Dunns Bridge Solar Project is a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources LLC, the world’s largest producer of renewable energy from wind and solar. According to the company, at the end of the lease in 2073, it will review any remedial work required on the land in accordance with the terms of the lease.

Land needed for the development of solar energy

Because land deals are typically private transactions, the amount of farmland currently under solar panels or leased for possible future development is unknown. The U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are creating a database of existing solar installations across the country. Work on the U.S. Large-Scale Solar PV Database began in 2020 and includes data on 3,699 facilities in 47 states and the District of Columbia. As of 2021, approximately 0.02% of all cropland in the continental United States had some overlap with large-scale ground-mounted solar panel installations. The total capacity of solar PV installations in the dataset represents over 60 gigawatts of electrical capacity. However, between 2021 and 2023, solar capacity almost tripled.

Reuters reviewed land use in four Midwestern counties – Pulaski, Starke and Jasper in Indiana and Columbia County in Wisconsin – and found the percentage is much higher. Some of the largest solar projects in the country are being developed or built in counties slightly larger than the state of Delaware. Reuters found that at the end of 2022, the percentage of most productive farmland in these counties secured by solar and energy companies was: 12% in Pulaski, 9% in Starke, 4% in Jasper and 5% in Columbia. Doral Renewables, the developer behind the $1.5 billion Mammoth Solar project in Pulaski and Starke counties, does not take corn or soybean yields into account when making site decisions. The company checks the site’s topography, zoning and proximity to the electrical grid or substation and tries to avoid wooded areas, ditches and environmentally sensitive areas. These are also areas usually avoided by farmers.

To meet the Biden administration’s 2050 decarbonization goals, the United States will need up to 1,570 gigawatts of solar power. According to the Department of Energy’s Solar Futures Study released in 2021, land needed is not expected to exceed 5 percent of any state except the smallest state, Rhode Island, where it could reach 6.5 percent by 2050.

But researchers at the American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit farmland preservation group, found that 83 percent of new solar investments in the United States will be on farms and ranches unless current government policies change. Nearly half would be on the country’s best land for producing food, fiber and other crops.

Application

Farmers are leasing land in the Midwest for solar investment as industry moves there because of the region’s massive government subsidies and low rents, transmission access and wide-open spaces. Although the leases provide damage control, as solar developers build roads and other infrastructure, the area’s rich topsoil is being depleted. Solar energy is another industry that takes important farmland out of production by offering much higher land rents than farmers can afford. If government policies do not provide generous solar benefits, much of farmland will be converted to solar energy to meet Biden’s climate goals, removing it from crop production. Despite the growing number of acres being converted to solar energy, the real issue is the quality of the land coming out of production and its importance to local economies, state economies and the future ability of the country to feed Americans.