SOLAR FARMS VS FARMERS

Solar debate heats up as CA farmland is targeted
Tracie Cone, March 14, 2012 (San Jose Mercury News)

"In the debate pitting photovoltaic power stations against agriculture, all eyes have been on Fresno County, where the abundance of sunshine that make it the No. 1 agriculture-producing county in the nation also makes it ideal for solar arrays…This week Fresno County, with 29 projects on 11,000 acres in the pipeline, approved its plan to balance food security with green energy with a decision that falls short of what both sides wanted…

"…Under the new regulations, authorities will consider the prior agricultural productivity of farmland in deciding whether to issue conditional use permits…but they will not automatically direct development to marginal and retired land lacking adequate water supplies, as farm organizations had wanted…Some on the board of supervisors view solar as the economic wave of the future, providing increased tax revenues and hundreds of construction jobs..."

Solar farm and farmland side by side in Germany (click to enlarge)

"…Environmental obstacles to solar keep popping up in places like California's expansive Mojave Desert. Developers now are eyeing farmland as easier places to build because plowing and planting thwarts endangered species such as kit foxes and kangaroo rats from taking up residence…California laws such as the Williamson Act that protect prime soils from development are being challenged by some local governments that are issuing temporary use permits for the arrays with the idea that the land could be returned to production down the road…The issue is critically important in a county with an annual agricultural production of $5.8 billion and an economy dependent upon packing, shipping and growing hundreds of products… [It is hoped] the new guidelines will be used to protect farming…

"A joint policy paper issued last year by the law schools at UCLA and UC-Berkeley says that California must balance a secure national food supply and energy production by identifying marginal farmland and guiding solar development to it or risk consequences...The state lost 200,000 acres of irrigated farmland to development between 2006 and 2008, and 1.3 million acres since 1984…Critics of the supervisors' decision point out that the region has 200,000 acres of retired land contaminated with selenium perfectly suited for sun energy…The state farm bureau has a lawsuit pending…A judge is expected to decide next week whether the state farm bureau has the right to sue…"