The U. S. Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, recently joined up with the Tennessee Governor, Bill Lee, to try to slow down putting solar panels in the farming land areas across the country.
According to the report, they said that USDA now will no longer fund taxpayer dollars to solar panels on productive farmland or allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in these USDA projects. Subsidized solar farms have made it more difficult for farmers to assess their farmland by making it more expensive and less available. Within the last 30 years, they said, Tennessee alone has lost over 1.2 million acres of farmland and is expected to lose 2 million acres again in 2027.
This problem is not just in Tennessee, it’s in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Since 2012, solar panels on farmland nationwide have increased by nearly 50%. This is why the Department is trying to take action.
They said that our prime farmland should not be wasted and replaced with green New Deal subsidized solar panels. It has been disheartening to see our beautiful farmland displaced by solar projects.
Audio Reporting by Tyron Spearman for Southeast AgNet.