Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins says the USDA will no longer fund taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland or allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in USDA projects.
Subsidized solar farms have made it more difficult for farmers to access farmland by making it more expensive and less available.
Within the last 30 years, Tennessee alone has lost over 1.2 million acres of farmland and is expected to lose two million acres by 2027.
This problem isn’t just in Tennessee, because, since 2012, solar panels on farmland nationwide have increased by almost 50 percent.
That’s why the Department took action.
“Our prime farmland should not be wasted and replaced with Green New Deal-subsidized solar panels,” Rollins said. “One of the biggest barriers to entry for new and young farmers is access to land, and subsidized solar farms are making land much more expensive and less available.”
