Hosting solar can be a lifeline for farmers. But overcoming local opposition is tough
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Audio By Carbonatix
8:10 AM on Monday, April 13
By JOSHUA A. BICKEL
CANFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Through the window of his combine, Wayne Greier watches his teenage son Blake drive a tractor across an empty field, towing a plow into position for another uncertain season of spring planting.
Greier would be worrying less if the solar farm he wanted on his land had come to pass. But local officials blocked it in 2023 under an Ohio state law, and Greier — facing a heavy medical debt — had to sell part of his land to stay afloat. The deal that was killed would have brought him about $540,000 in lease payments every year.
“It was our saving grace,” he said. “It wasn’t a scary picture that everybody likes to paint about solar and the loss of farmland.”
Local opposition to solar has long been an obstacle for green energy developers. But some communities are working to reverse local restrictions, citing the tax benefits and jobs the projects bring and the lease payments from energy companies that can provide stable income to farmers in a volatile industry.
When a solar company approached him wanting to build panels on part of his land, Greier, 42, and a sixth-generation farmer, hesitated. But facing $1 million in medical debt from a long battle with COVID and related complications, he saw a chance to save his farm.
Some in the community thought differently.
Greier said he and his family were ostracized as debate over the project played out in public meetings. His mental health plummeted. And the project was eventually blocked under a state law that allows counties to block construction of wind and solar farms on land they deem “restricted.”
“I was the one that was going to lose the sixth-generation farm. I was the one that couldn’t provide for my family,” he said.
President Donald Trump's hostility to green energy has battered the industry by wiping away subsidies, loans and tax incentives. But even before his return to the White House, local bans on renewable energy were becoming more common. A 2025 study from Columbia University found that from 2023 to 2024, there was a 16% increase in local laws across 44 states that restricted such projects.
“Many communities want to decarbonize and probably theoretically support renewable energy,” said Juniper Katz, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts who focuses on environmental policy. But, she added, “When it’s your community and your backyard, balancing these processes so people feel like they’ve had a say without creating so many veto points that nothing can get done, I think is the trick. And it’s not easy to do.”
In February, Dearborn County, Indiana, officials paused solar development for a year after concern from residents over the proximity of solar panels near homes and potential environmental impact of panel materials.
Bobby Rauen, who lives near part of a proposed 1,200-acre (486-hectare) solar project in that county, is among residents who petitioned for the pause. He said he hopes officials use this time to create better protections for residents living near potential solar projects. He said he was also concerned that farmland may not go back into production if solar panels are eventually removed.
After officials in Mahoning County, Ohio, halted Greier's planned 675-acre (273-hectare), 150-megawatt project, he decided to help others who wanted solar on their land, saying he “didn’t want to be a victim.” As a member of the Renewable Energy Farmers of America, Greier, who primarily farms corn and soybeans, has shared his experience with lawmakers, advocacy groups and in communities debating green energy development.
He recently spoke to government officials at a public meeting in Richland County, Ohio, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) from his home. Advocates there got a referendum on the ballot this May to reverse the county’s ban on wind and solar projects.
Morgan Carroll, a lifelong county resident, has been working since last summer to rally support to drop the ban. Though she is not a farmer or landowner, Carroll said she supports the jobs and tax revenue these projects can bring and thinks the ban takes the decision away from residents — and may someday affect her two young children.
“I want them to be in a county that can provide jobs, can provide a good school for them,” she said. “I don’t want to have to move.”
Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration moved up deadlines for utility-scale solar projects to qualify for tax incentives after the passage of a big tax breaks and spending cuts bill last July. Now, utility-scale solar projects have to be in service by the end of 2027 to qualify.
Last year, Lita Leavell and her husband, Joe, who operate a 1,000-acre (405-hectare) cattle farm in Lancaster, Kentucky, had hoped to host a utility-scale solar project on about half their land that would have brought them an estimated $60,000 per year. Like Greier, the lease payments would have ensured the land could stay in their family.
But after a Garrard County ordinance was passed in 2023 restricting the development of solar, the energy company Leavell was working with decided to end the project.
Part of her county's rationale for the ordinance was the federal government's opposition to solar energy and the Trump administration's desire to stop utility-scale projects on farmland, county leaders said during an August 2025 meeting. Leavell, who said she is a Republican, questioned why lack of federal support for green energy projects should affect her ability to pursue these projects on her own land. She and a group of six other landowners are suing to overturn the ordinance.
“The thing I guess that perplexed me so much is that there’s so many more worse things that could be next to you,” she said.
Carroll, who helped gather signatures for the referendum in Richland County, Ohio, found that when the debate over solar projects was framed as a property rights issue, people in the community were more receptive.
Greier also focuses on property rights when speaking on the issue. His farm is his retirement plan, and he should have the right to use it to support his family, he said.
“There’s families that are relying on this and looking for this,” he said. “And it’s been taken away, this opportunity.”
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