‘Is that what net zero should be about?’ Farmland falls to solar gold-rush

By Paul Homewood

h/t Philip Bratby

From the Telegraph:

When tenant farmer Nicholas Waller-Barrett decided to explore ways to boost his small potato farm and chip factory in Norfolk, solar panels were an obvious answer.

A few of the energy-generating panels could, he thought, help provide more power to the farm, which employs nine people from the surrounding villages.

But be careful what you wish for. Waller-Barrett’s farm has been targeted for a massive solar plant, which will be called Glebe Farm, and now his landlord plans to take his land away, replacing potato crops with thousands of giant glass panels.

The decision, backed by edicts from Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, favouring solar farms over food production on UK farmland, means his flourishing food business will shrink – and staff will be out of work.

Meanwhile the distant landlord will be quids in, potentially quadrupling their rent with virtually no effort.

“It’s like a bombshell hit us,” says Waller-Barrett, whose family has farmed the land at Horsford, north of Norwich, for seven decades.

Waller-Barrett is not alone. All over the UK tenant farmers are being thrown off their land – much of it prime farmland – to make way for solar panels.

Many other farmers who own their land are selling or leasing it to solar companies – all meaning it will no longer produce food.

The reason is simple: farmland typically generates profits of a few hundred pounds per acre when cropped but three to four times that amount when under solar panels.

Full story here.