From Nathan Dombeck

Janesville

To the Editor:

‘Why would you want to cover the best cropland in the nation with solar panels?’ seems to be the latest rallying cry, whenever a proposed solar development is slated for some of our Midwest farmland. Never mind the fact that it is indeed the property owner’s choice about what goes on their land, that nobody is being forced to raze their farm to the ground to make way for solar panels, or that many farmers are supportive of efforts to decarbonize our energy supply.

A study published in Anthropocene magazine estimates that a mere 1% of current US farmland, estimated at about 13,000 square miles, would provide up to 20% of our country’s energy needs if utilized for solar generation. One percent!

As far as that ‘some of the best farmland’ claim, an NPR article in 2021 summarized findings from the US Dept of Agriculture, which reported up to 1/3 of the most fertile topsoil has already been lost across the US, thanks to plowing and erosion. Far from further degrading the land, solar panels could be used to ‘give the land a rest’, letting organic material reaccumulate and restore the soil to some degree. Agrivoltaics, combining crops or livestock that thrive under and around the shade of the panels, would let farm owners continue to utilize the land for farming if they wished.

The world is changing; we need to change with it.