Massive Wisconsin solar proposal splits farmers and clean energy fans

Bob Bishop is a 61-year-old farmer living in dairy country in southwestern Wisconsin. Today he is helping his two sons pull a downed tree off of a fence line, stepping through piles of cow manure and corn stalks as he drags the branches into the big claw of a skid loader.

Soon, the family will stop raising dairy cows because the industry is in trouble. In 2018, Wisconsin lost 638 dairy farms because of falling milk prices. And the Bishops, who farm in Iowa County, still carry debt from when hog prices tanked in the 1990s.

Yet a rare opportunity has come the Bishops’ way. For at least a generation, the family would receive double or more the market rental rate on about 650 acres to be used for a giant solar power project. The Badger Hollow Solar Farm would be the largest such project in the Midwest...

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Ken Notes: I love solar and hope all the power companies find way to bring exponentially more of it onto the grid. I also see small farms struggling or failing altogether and I do not believe solar is the solution. We have millions of rooftops, parking lots, and other developed properties where solar is a good mix with urban design. I am nervous about using farm lands simply because it is available and an easy solution. Once we lose farmland it will be very difficult to get it back. So solar now becomes a new form of urban sprawl. Renewable sprawl if you will.