Putting solar panels on prime farmland destroys life, immerses the surrounding area in electromagnetic frequencies, requires massive new mines and has no decommissioning plan
A wonderful young homesteading couple from Indiana visited us over the weekend with a first-person, disconcerting story.
Two weeks after moving into their dream homestead on 40 acres, they learned that the surrounding 3,200 acres and another 5,000 acres just down the road were leased for solar farms. Upon learning about this, they immediately asked the solar company if it would buy their land, but of course these outfits don’t buy land; they just lease it.
After promising to not pound the 12-foot pedestals (they go eight feet in the ground) during off-hours, the very first week the pounding went on over Saturday and until midnight. Now that the panels are up and functioning, all wildlife is gone. It’s a completely sterile landscape.
The solar company brought in sheep to mow and keep things tidy. But the sheep gnawed the electric wires. Now the company is trying to get rid of the sheep, which are not being cared for and are turning into walking skeletons.
The lease contracts are in 10-year increments, and when they terminate, the landowner is responsible for the panel cleanup. Materials in the panels turn them into hazardous material. The solar company bears no responsibility for panels if it terminates the lease.
Folks, this is prime Indiana farmland. Regardless of whether this land is being farmed well or not, this is an historic lock-up of valuable food-producing land. The last time I was in New Jersey, everywhere I looked rich farmland was being covered with solar panels.
We are sowing a wind that is going to release a whirlwind. For the love of Pete, what is our culture thinking when we solar-panel-over hundreds of thousands of prime soil with solar panels? Are we planning to eat them sometime? They destroy life, immerse the neighborhood in electromagnetic frequencies, require massive new mines and offer a decommissioning problem that could easily bankrupt all these landowners eventually. For sure, they are gutting and destroying farming communities.
I’ve been excited about the aging American farmer and all the land that will become available to a new generation of homesteaders and composters, but if it all gets turned into solar panels instead, we haven’t made progress. You can’t eat electricity. Perhaps a better approach to our energy issues would be to eliminate all video games, all social media, all crypto-mining and all Artificial Intelligence, thereby reducing our energy needs to pre-1950s levels.
As bad as all this is, probably the worst part of it is that none of this would make sense without government subsidies with worthless money, inflation and increasing indebtedness to future generations. On the face, it’s absurd. Dig deeper, and it’s diabolical. If solar panels are the solution, why not put them on rooftops?
Joel Salatin farms at Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia. He is the editor of The Stockman Grass Farmer and the author of many books, including The Salatin Semester DVD/Book Set, published by Acres U.S.A.
This article was originally published on his blog, thelunaticfarmer.com.
