Pettis County Presiding Commissioner Bill Taylor is concerned about a looming threat to thousands of acres of farmland in the Show-Me State.
“It’s one of the most important issues in the county,” Taylor told the Democrat. “Counties around us are getting 1,000 acres solar farms coming in. "If you get up into Callaway and Audrain county, they got 18,000 acres of windmills and solar farms. 18,000 in those two counties and it's gobbling up farmland. They've got neighbor against neighbor.”
Taylor said there’s a reason the farms are being suddenly shaded by endless rows of solar panels.
“There’s a lot of federal money out there subsidizing solar farms and they're not very efficient, but green energy’s popular right now regardless of whether it's a good thing or not,” Taylor said. “They don't have grid big enough to handle all this power but yet their throwing it all out there thinking everybody's gonna adapt.”
A huge factor making solar farms problematic is the new transmission lines needed to get the renewable energy to the grid will likely cause legal battles.
In Jefferson City, Rep. Brad Pollitt is fighting to regulate solar power, windmills, and a slew of agriculture operations that could soon change Pettis county forever.
“Rural Missouri is changing, and we've got some chaos coming into Pettis County,” Pollit said. “Whether it’s concentrated agriculture farms, like your chicken barns and your hog confinement barns, farmers are making decisions on their land and as long as they're within the law there's not a lot that can be done about that.”
With small farms dwindling and ready money available some landowners are looking to move into solar farming.
“A farmer should be able to do with their land as they choose because it's their land as long as it's within the legal guidelines,” Pollitt said. “The last two years have been very tough on agriculture; farm incomes down 40% since 2022 and there's a lot of creditors saying we got to have some type of cash flow in order to continue to service your loans.”
And the big changes are not just in neighboring counties, but neighboring states.
“Rural Missouri's changing a lot, like rural Iowa's changed and rural Arkansas’ changed,” Pollitt said. “There's a lot of things going on and some folks are wanting us to revisit Senate bill 391 which passed five years ago and changed the setbacks on the confinement operations. Ag groups are not really interested in revisiting that as we're supposed to be an Ag ready county.”
With agriculture interests limiting county legislation, more solar panel, windmill turbines and landfills could be on the horizon.
“We've got over 100 new chicken barns coming in,” Taylor said. “Tyson's been a good partner with the county's largest economic impact of any one industry. We’ve got people thinking we need planning and zoning for that. If you had zoning, it's still AG, it's not going to change anything.”
With solar farms taking more and more land, Pollitt is hearing cries for help from his constituents.
“Look north and see other counties in freak out a little bit,” Pollitt said. “You know they don't want it, that's like dumps to them, they just don't want another big infrastructure thing their country. You also must consider your neighbor and their plight when it comes to transmission lines and how to get that power to the grid,” Pollitt said. “We've had a lot of battles in Jefferson City over transmission lines, eminent domain and being able to take your neighbor's land through eminent domain.”
Pollitt is working on legislation that helps limit solar green energy.
“I believe that the federal government should be spending their money on clean burning coal and nuclear power instead of green energy,” Pollitt said. “Because with green energy there's no guarantee that the sun's going to shine, the wind's going to blow, and must have that backed up with dispensable power.”
The proposed legislation would force for profit utilities have to have their green energy backed up with dispensable power, whether that be coal, gas or nuclear to avoid rolling blackouts.
With State officials hoping to double Missouri’s solar capacity by 2030, solar power is sure to be a boon to many local economies, while bringing its own set of problems; lawsuits, needs for regulation, energy storage, power transmission and environmental impact.
“So, there's a lot of concerns,” Pollitt said. “Whether it be the concentrated farms or whether it be the wind energy or the solar energy.”
Chris Howell can be reached at 660-530-0146.