Hosting Solar Can Be a Lifeline for Farmers. But Overcoming Local Opposition is Tough

By Joshua A. Bickel

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.