Roughly 2,200 acres of prime farmland is vanishing under a blue blanket of glass, plastic, aluminum, and silicon in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. The disappearing act, increasingly common in rural America, is a sweet source of income for some farmers, but a bitter pill for many adjoining producers and landowners.
“Giant solar panels mean prime farmland gone forever and the ruin of rural life, not to mention a potential environmental mess,” says Kate Smit, whose farm sits close to the proposed solar facility.
Smit’s property will be the next-door recipient of 461,000 solar panels strung in 5,400 rows, much of it surrounded by 7’-high fencing.
Bill Peter, a homeowner adjacent to the incoming facility and former longtime employee of Liberty Farms, the same operation that leased the acres for a solar transformation, is opposed to the installation: “Don’t insult me by calling it a ‘solar farm.’ I’m not fooled. What’s happening is sick, and whether you live in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, or any other state, it’s coming to your backyard. Today here and tomorrow everywhere.”
Peter was fired by Liberty Farms on March 27, he claims, as a direct outcome of his opposition to the solar lease. “I don’t agree with the ‘tiny percent of overall farmland’ excuse,” he adds. “This is one of the saddest things I’ve seen in American agriculture in my lifetime. It ends with glass and metal covering millions of acres.”
Is Peter correct? How many solar acres are planned: 10 million by 2030? 20 million by 2040? Less? More?
Eyesore or Green Beauty?
Standing at the edge of her 97 acres of grain outside Richland Township, Kate Smit sweeps an arm toward the horizon. She soon will be surrounded by a sea of solar panels. Her property almost rubs nearby Liberty Farms—which leased 2,268 prime acres to Consumers Energy, the second largest electric utility in Michigan, for a solar facility with construction and operation scheduled in 2026.
“Our family farm dates back 100 years and now my kids will inherit our fields beside a sprawling, industrial mess,” Smit describes. “We’re an example of what’s going on all over Michigan and the U.S.”
(The Liberty Farms solar installation is not a done deal. The Richland Township planning commission has not yet approved Consumer Energy’s application.)
“Our area in Richland has gorgeous nature with abundant deer, ospreys, bald eagles, cranes, and you name it. We’re also a wonderful agriculture community, and it’s all the bigger shame because prime farmland is what they’re using for this solar project.”
According to a release, Consumers Energy “expects the Project to be in service for at least 35 years. Consumers Energy has worked diligently with nearby landowners and residents to minimize Project impacts on the surrounding community.”
“Are you kidding me? That farmland is lost way past 35 years or 50 years, or whatever ridiculous number they throw out,” Smit says. “No one wants solar panels here, and Consumers knows that. Our community is fighting this tooth and nail. Consumers came here hush-hush, did deals with MDOT, and suddenly our landscape is permanently destroyed.”
(Consumers Energy declined Agweb interview requests regarding the Richland solar installation.)
“We want to stall Consumers’ solar project until we can get a bill passed in our state senate to where townships and counties have to vote if a solar panel company wants in,” Smit continues.
Two miles from Smit, Bill Peter, 70, who sits on the Richland Township board as a trustee, lives down a mile-and-a-half road dotted with seven homes. “I’m about to get circled by solar panels,” he says. “Literally, Consumers Energy is putting panels all the way around. They’ll take out the tillable ground and replace it with glass.”
Ironically, until March 2026, Peter was employed at Liberty Farms, the new landlord of Consumers Energy. “I’m not afraid to tell the truth and they fired me for it. That’s their choice,” he emphasizes. “I’m not sitting quietly while 450,000 solar panels permanently replace the best farm soil around.”
Generally, solar panels are made of 76% glass, 10% plastic, 8% aluminum, 5% silicon, and 1% copper.
“There’s nothing green about this green energy,” Peter contends. “They want to put glass, steel, aluminum, and plastic on top of a natural watershed area, and completely cut the ground off from photosynthesis, and then tell you it’s environmentally safe for 50 years, and won’t hurt the soil with contamination? What happens when a tornado or natural disaster tosses grinds all these panels to particles?”
“We’re all tired of this renewable energy talk,” he adds. “It funnels to tax dollars and tax breaks, and backroom deals and mandates. This Richland installation is rumored to be a $50-plus million contract, ultimately paid for by us in one way or another.”
“Wake up,” Smit echoes. “No matter where you’re at in the U.S., the land beside you or the land in your community could be next. How many panels will they put in if they can get away with it?”
Battle of the Pens
In 2021, President Biden (Executive Order 14057) mandated that the federal government reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. A massive solar push was included in the plan. How much farmland was needed to reach the net-zero goal? Estimates ranged from 10 million to 26 million acres, with upper end projections of 50 million.
However, in 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14148, revoking Biden’s mandate.
In 2024-2025, solar infrastructure covered approximately 1 million-plus acres of farmland, with roughly half of the acreage directly on cropland. Overall, the U.S. contains almost 880 million acres of farmland.
“It’s not that complicated to me,” says Ed Yelton, a cattle producer in Dearborn County, Indiana. “They’ll build as many as they can get away with. If you think it’s not a big deal because they’re only on a fraction of total farmland, wait till one pops up beside you. Who in the hell wants to see the monstrosity?”
“And if a different presidential administration comes in, they might pick up a pen and sign another executive order and we’ll be at 50 million acres before you know it. Let me be direct: Whatever number the government pushes, that tells me they want far, far more.”
A mile from Yelton’s pastures, Linea Energy has a lease on 1,200 acres of planned solar panels. “It’s beautiful farmland, or was,” Yelton says.
Prime agricultural land is popular for solar installations, partially because it’s often open, dry, and relatively flat. Construction costs for solar conversion on farmland are generally lower than on other types of ground.
“The energy people slipped in here and signed leases with people without nobody knowing it. These are the same people that tell you that solar isn’t permanent while they’re hauling in glass, fencing, and concrete. This is same story you see in North Carolina, New York, Kentucky, Oklahoma—it’s all over the place.”
“We’re pressuring our zoning board to do something,” Yelton exclaims. “That might be the solution in the future: Only allow solar panel installation beside the homes and properties of county officials and board members. Hell, that might sincerely stop some of this.”
Private Land v Public Choice?
Whose ox is gored? When millions of dollars in lease contracts are at stake, how does the right to use private land as a property owner sees fit weigh into the solar equation? Simply, solar pays tremendously well compared with corn, cotton, rice, or soybeans.
“It’s a tough one,” Yelton admits. “I believe a person should be able to do with their land whatever they want, but solar is something else. If you’re the next to get panels beside your land or house, you’ll be sick. The only solution to panels and AI data centers is to let a community decide.”
“The power companies and the government all know this is wrong. That’s why they call them ‘solar farms.’ They use words to trick and influence the public, but that’s an insult to anyone in agriculture. I’m sticking with common sense: Once you put glass, aluminum, and plastic all over a field, that’s no longer a farm.”
Well and Good
As of 2024, American Farm Bureau Federation estimates over 1.25 million acres of farmland has been covered by solar installations:
The ERS (Economic Research Service, USDA) approximates solar’s footprint as of 2020 at 336,000 acres of rural land based on the total solar production capacity installed in U.S. Census designated rural areas. As solar capacity has more than doubled since 2020 and is increasingly coming from utility-scale solar, this estimate is woefully out-of-date. Using SIEA’s current estimate of 200 GW of installed solar capacity, ERS’s estimate of 7.5 acres used per MW of production, and AFT’s estimate that 83% of solar installations are on farmland, we roughly estimate that 1.25 million acres of farmland have been converted for use in solar production. While that may be a startlingly high number to some, it would represent 0.14% of the 879 million acres of farmland in the United States.
Whether eyesore and erasure, or energy godsend and income windfall, the pressure from solar installations and data centers on rural landowners and communities is just beginning, Kate Smit says.
“We’re supposed to say nothing while solar panels and data centers explode, and we’re told about the wonders of green, renewable energy,” she concludes. “If it’s all so well and good, then who wants one outside your bedroom window?”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
