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Solar farms expected to remain polarizing in 2025

Solar farms displacing productive farmland will likely remain a sensitive topic among farmers in 2025.

Minnesota Farmers Union president Gary Wertish says solar sites should not be located on prime crop ground.

“But then I see the investments (by) utilities (so) they want it close to their transmission lines, and it’s more economic for them to do that. But it is a concern, we don’t want to lose prime farmland. But then again it gets to be a property rights issue too.”

He tells Brownfield another concern is landowners who don’t actively farm.

“The fear is a lot of that land will maybe get switched over and they just get their check for a utility versus from a farmer renting land. So we definitely support solar, but the siting, I guess that is the controversial part. We’d like to see more of that going on what’s not considered prime farmland.”

Wertish says he understands the temptation because some companies are offering a lot of money to develop solar farms.