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The solar industry is pushing into the US Midwest, drawn by cheaper land rentals, access to electric transmission and a wealth of federal and state incentives.
Solar energy companies are leasing thousands of acres of land from Midwestern farmers, which can hinder crop-growing or grazing livestock there. It’s a tradeoff between expanding renewables and giving up future yields.
Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen. About 445 acres of his...
A renewable energy boom risks damaging some of richest soils in key farming states
Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen. About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery – land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest. On that blustery spring afternoon in 2022, Duttlinger said, his phone rang with questions from frustrated neighbors: Why is dust from your farm inside my truck?