Why I am protesting solar farms at tonight's town board meeting

I am attending a town board meeting this evening that will discuss the future of solar farms in the area. Here is why I will not stand by as we lose farmland to solar empires.

Tonight I am attending, for the first time, a town board meeting (where my farm resides) to weigh in on a heavily debated topic: solar farms. My town has done a great job of keeping these solar corporations at bay while we all, collectively, decide how we want our farmland to look 50-years from now.

There are a lot of layers to this topic, and I want to first start off by saying I am not opposed to solar or renewable energy. I am opposed to taking out what’s left of our fertile American farmland to set up dystopian rows of panels that bring down the property values for the farmers surrounding the solar farm.

We can be smarter about where we put these panels.

I have spoken with a other farmers in my area that have told me they are constantly approached by, and even pressured by (due to the state funding/New York State grant money propping these ‘green companies’ up), solar empires to hand over their land in the form of a rental check for the rest of their lives. Whenever I hear about a corporation, of any kind, placing pressure on an everyday person, I perk up. It’s a sign something much more nefarious is at play here, which is why the researcher in me hit the books to uncover what I am going to share with you below.

I will never make a claim or a complaint without backing up my argument.

We absolutely have the capabilities and space to set these solar panels up NOT in the middle of farmland. New York State knows this, the solar empires know this, and the farmers struggling to maintain their way of life near my farm know this. Something needs to be done about it immediately.

As of June 9, 2025, around 1.25 million acres of US farmland has been converted into solar farms. Though that’s a fraction of the total farming acreage in our country, its rapid expansion bolstered by government programs points to a trend in which 10 million or more acres of US farmland will carry rows of solar panels within the next few years. We are at the start of a land grab - these solar companies know that $24 trillion dollars worth of farmland will change hands as farmers retire over the next 20-years (source: the 2025 Farmer’s Almanac). That’s why they are quietly on the move, approaching farmers over the age of 60 to offer them an ‘out’ from the industry before the land ever has a chance to transfer into younger farmers’ hands.

If you think this phenomenon is not common, I challenge you to talk to 10 different farmers in your region this week. The story will become uniform. The problem is that more than half of the country lives in urban/city areas today. Solar presents a clean, efficient form of energy for regions already covered in concrete. It absolutely belongs in places we’ve ceded to parking lots, high-rises, and municipal buildings a long time ago. But for those who never leave urban areas, they are lacking perspective to understand what is happening to the land that quite literally feeds us.

It’s critical that this perspective be talked about before our farmland is gone… forever.

Solar farms exacerbate declining pollinator numbers

I am beginning my argument by defending the very farm I am starting on my 6.74 acres: a pollinator farm. I bought my land with the intention of attracting and supporting as many beneficial and endangered pollinators as possible. We have lost over 25% of all butterflies in the US since 1999; 3 billion birds since 1970; and 34.7% of our native bee species are currently in decline or at risk of extinction. The Monarch butterfly is staring down extinction in our lifetimes if we don’t provide non-pesticide covered habitat and food for them on their migrations.

I have planted over 50 different native plants and food sources for these pollinators that I will be studying and documenting this summer. The Monarch butterfly can smell its host plant, milkweed, from over 2 miles away, which means plenty of these at-risk species will be making their way over to my property.

A solar farm on the 100 acres across the street from my farm would bring the following:

• 100 pounds of pesticides/herbicides sprayed/applied every year to manage weeds and plants around the panels (1 pound per 1 acre)

• a 100 acre ‘dead-zone’ of native plants and habitat for these pollinators to fly over to make it to my farm

• pesticide drift: these chemicals can travel up to 1,100 feet away from where they are sprayed, covering my land and farm

• nocturnal lighting around the solar farm will disrupt evening migrations and pollinators

• turf and artificial grasses are brought in/laid under the panels, disrupting ecological corridors

• panel glare has been proven to trick dragonflies into thinking they are water, thereby laying their eggs on the panels

• thermal hot spots are created on and around the panels, impacting local temperature-sensitive pollinators

• heavy equipment is brought in to install the panels, creating soil compaction that kills all ground-nesting native bees and prevents future nesting

• fencing around the farm prevents wildlife migrations and movement

A solar farm would in essence cause my farm to close… for good. Many farms around my farm rely on these pollinators to make it to their land for pollination. Without pollination, their crop yields would drop dramatically.

Property values

Farming is a strenuous, risky business. It’s why so many farmers are barely able to stay afloat financially. Taking out what’s left of the value of their farm and assets to set up a solar farm nearby would be the final nail in the coffin for American farmers. Allow me to explain.

One study conducted in Florida on properties that surround solar farms out in the country found, on average, a 6.9% decrease in property value. For the family farms working 4,000 acres today, they are sitting on a property with a value in the millions. That means around $70,000/per million valuation of their farm would disappear overnight. Farmers cannot afford that loss of property value while shouldering other expensive inputs, like tractors, machinery, seeds, etc.

Funnily enough, solar panels placed in urban areas created a 4% increase (according to Zillow) in property values for those living nearby. Here’s why:

• the perception of the panels leads locals to believe they will enjoy energy bill reductions

• locals feel they are living near clean, green energy that is good for them and their families

• locals feel the city is working smartly with a future-forward agenda that will increase the value of their properties down the line

In urban settings, the panels “blend into” the already developed areas that bid farewell to wildflower meadows and corn rows a long time ago. The panels look like they belong.

Therefore, solar panels create added monetary value when they are placed in areas where they blend into the surrounding scenery.

In rural areas, solar farms bring down property values for the following reasons:

• they are a dystopian eyesore that destroys the countryside views/settings

• they disrupt farming operations, pollination, and health of soil

• they are seen in opposition to the ‘farming way of life’

• the massive fencing and nocturnal lighting set up around the solar farms turn an agrarian area into a place that feels like Area 451

The green lie

Can solar panels, when placed in advantageous areas, out of the way of animal migrations, create clean, green energy for the populations around them? In essence, they can. I am not denying that. But I am going to explore the ‘green lie’ that comes from placing these panels in the middle of farmland.

First, the solar panels will take out acres of land that were previously used to feed people and pollinators. Where will our food come from when it’s no longer grown in this country? What will happen to the animals and pollinators unable to migrate over previously nature-dominant areas?

Second, the solar panels themselves are not-recyclable. Yes, they can be broken down into their original parts and recycled one piece at a time. But solar companies have admitted that breaking down solar panels into parts for recycling does not make economic sense. Here’s a quote that sums up the problem:

“The reason you do not see more companies doing solar panel recycling is because the economics don’t make sense,” said AJ Orben, vice president at We Recycle Solar, one company focused on this activity. “It costs more to break a panel down and recover the raw materials than what the raw materials themselves are worth.”

The panels themselves, if not disturbed by extreme weather events, will generate power for 20 to 25 years. The level of hazardous waste that is going to be generated by these farms a few decades from now is unfathomable.

Which brings me to my next point. Due to climate change, the size and severity of hail storms in the US is increasing. The percentage of US storms with hailstones over 2 inches in diameter rose from 4% in 2000 to 12% in 2024. Climate models are showing that hail storms with ‘very large hailstones’ may increase anywhere from 25 to 75% over the next few decades.

Here’s what happens when very large hailstones hit solar panels:

• A 3,000-acre solar farm just outside of Houston Texas lost THOUSANDS of panels to a hail storm in 2024. Though the panels are smartly constructed to not naturally leach chemicals, when hailstones the size of golf balls strike the panels, they leach out toxic metals and chemicals, like lead and cadmium into the soil below them. Cleaning up this kind of spillage will take hundreds of years.

• The same thing happened at a Nebraska solar farm in 2023, which not only destroyed the land below the panels, but also left local towns with a power crisis after plugging into the solar grid. This raises questions about energy diversification that I can leave for another article.

If panels are placed above parking lots, buildings, and municipal structures, the solar panel leakage would dump onto concrete - and not onto the soil that was previously feeding our families.

Additionally, solar manufacturers are increasing the size of the panels to cover more ground, which results in thinner glass to reduce costs. This makes the latest solar panel models more susceptible to hail storm ruin.

The urban solution

I am coming to this meeting tonight with receipts. After extensive research, I uncovered the following:

• there is 1.6 million square feet of parking lots in Saratoga County

• 250,000 square feet of parking garages

• 600,000 square feet of county-owned government buildings

• 2 million square feet of retail stores and big box stores

• 34 MILES of I-87 highway where the panels could be used and installed between the lanes or overtop of the lanes (known as a solar canopy)

That means there is 4,450,000 square feet of available space on top of parking lots and structures for these panels, as well as 1,300 acres of land (based off 300 feet of width between the highway lanes and middle area) along I-87. Using solar panels as a canopy can bring heat down by 20 to 30 degrees below the panels, which is ideal for both cars and humans using the parking garages and roadways.

A 1-acre parking lot with a solar canopy can generate 1 MW of energy annually, which is enough to power 200 homes.

That means that Saratoga County has more than enough already developed urban and highway settings to generate power for the residents in this county without taking out idyllic, fertile farmland, wildlife habitats, and migratory routes for pollinators.

Additionally, there are more than a dozen highways in this county that can be added to this mix. I figured I would start with the major interstate to illustrate the land that’s being left out of this conversation… when it should be the focus for these solar empires.

This state, the governor, and the solar empires under her control probably know what I just disclosed in this article. Yet they are encouraging life-long farmers to hand over their farms as we speak. This ignites a broader discussion about the motives behind this land grab. We can begin the discussion below!

Lastly, before someone brings up agrovoltaics as a way to marry farming and solar, I am strictly speaking about the solar farms that are gobbling up millions of acres in our country right now. I am speaking to the companies taking out entire farms to install nothing but fenced in solar panels. I recently spoke to a farmland owner near my farm who went on a road trip from New York to California. He’s been making this trip for years. He said the drive is almost unrecognizable today compared to a decade ago. It’s solar farm after solar farm. It’s horrifying, and it must be talked about. Agrovoltaics are not part of this current conversation. Let’s put an end to this land grab, first, and bring on the hybrid arrangements in the future.

I will be standing up before my town this evening to make this argument. You will always catch me defending the soil, the birds, the bees, and the butterflies both at my farm and throughout this country. Someone has to stand up for them. I don’t care how unpopular that makes me. Wish me luck!

I write about buying land with loans, starting a farm from scratch, working with the Amish, bringing utilities to land, finding cheap farmland for sale, the costs of starting a farm, etc. here on my Substack. I encourage you to read along with me!