Editor’s note: This is part of a series called “Paved Over” that explores the impact of tech-driven development on U.S. farmland. Stories will focus on data center expansion, solar development, the impact to farmers losing land and possible solutions.
Rural communities across the United States are experiencing tech-driven development pressure as electricity-hungry technologies like artificial intelligence take center stage. While high-density regions are accustomed to curating development via local mechanisms like zoning and deed restrictions, others aren’t as prepared.
The federal government uses incentives, or the lack thereof, to broadly influence this development. In August, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the agency would nix Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for wind and solar development on productive ag land by the end of 2027. The USDA also significantly rolled back its Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which provides grants and loans to agricultural producers for renewable energy systems and efficiency improvements.
Rather than commercial solar developers, REAP beneficiaries are mostly individual farmers looking to lower on-farm energy costs by installing panels on farm shed roofs, according Samantha Levy, senior policy manager for conservation and energy at the advocacy organization American Farmland Trust.
“It’s one of those instances where the idea or the rhetoric is perhaps reflecting a sentiment that they would like to see achieved, but the policy thus far is not the tool that’s really going to be changing this broader challenge,” she said.
There are other policies, both favorable and restrictive, for tech-driven development in the legislative pipeline:
Protecting American Farmland Act. Introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., it would explicitly prohibit solar development on prime farmland as defined by the Farmland Protection Policy Act. It is currently in committee.
SPEED Act. Already passed by the House, the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act would streamline projects covered by the National Environmental Policy Act. This could benefit both oil and gas, and renewable energy, and is relevant given data centers’ skyrocketing energy needs.
Political rhetoric
Despite the Trump administration’s pivot away from clean energy, Jeff Risley, executive director of Renewable Energy Farmers of America, expects clean-energy development on rural land to find an “equilibrium” and continue “because [electricity] demand is greatly increasing.”
“The market is going to reward the cheapest and fastest that can come on line, and that’s wind and solar,” he said. Some farmers point toward alternative clean-energy sources like nuclear power as a better option; however, powerplants take decades to build, and more electricity is needed now.
Given that, Risley argued that solar is targeted “for political reasons and not practical reasons. Imagine standing up to one of your landowner neighbors and saying, ‘You can’t drill for oil on your land. I don’t want to see a pump jack out there.’”
Risley said this is also true of wind turbines, which take up minimal acreage and don’t impact crop production that much. He said farmers who want to sell or lease their land for clean energy or tech-driven development should be able to do so.
“Aesthetics are not a good argument. They’re just not. Viewshed is not a good argument. Of course, we believe in zoning. We believe that communities need to be involved in the process. They absolutely do. But it needs to be civil and it needs to be a rational conversation about what’s best for everybody,” he says.
States are also taking action. Many pay landowners to voluntarily restrict development on their property through Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easements agreements. Others tax land on its agricultural value rather than market potential. Missouri is attempting more drastic action via “a bill that would put a moratorium on any solar development, even if it’s under construction at this point, to be able to write statewide regulations on this type of thing,” Risley continues. Rather than moratoriums, Risley emphasized a need for better local-level regulation because every community is unique.
In Ohio, broader protectionary policies are gaining traction. Gerry Puckett, director of communications and industry relations with Ohio Corn and Wheat, points to House Bill 15, which was recently codified into law by the Ohio General Assembly, as a good example. The legislation promotes energy generation on brownfields and abandoned sites. He says it’s good for both urban and rural residents.
“We have areas in our state that could use redevelopment for energy projects,” Puckett says. “That’s a benefit not only to the people who live in those communities, but to all Ohioans. And it helps protect land that will never return to farming otherwise.”
Data center support
Concurrent to sundowning its solar energy incentives, the federal government is working to rapidly expand data centers, which house artificial intelligence and cloud-based digital infrastructure. They’re driving the increasing energy demand that solar arrays and wind farms aim to feed. In July, Pres. Donald Trump streamlined regulation to encourage data center development with his Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure executive order.
“We will pursue bold, large-scale industrial plans to vault the United States further into the lead on critical manufacturing processes and technologies that are essential to national security, economic prosperity and scientific leadership,” Trump stated in the order. “It will be a priority of my administration to facilitate the rapid and efficient buildout of this infrastructure by easing federal regulatory burdens.”
Alongside this buildout, Trump’s order supports constructing the high-voltage transmission lines and adjacent power facilities that power the data centers.
“It’s incredible. Many of them are under construction already. We’re leading AI,” Trump said during a White House briefing in early January.
This push is taking America’s rural spaces by storm. Levy compares it to the early days of commercial solar development.“This is an emerging issue the way solar was eight or nine years ago. It took us time to ‘get over our skis on it’ and really understand it from a thoughtful perspective. What’s happening? What’s needed? How does this impact our mission?” Levy said. “Policymaking is trying to get on top of it