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Legislation reintroduced to end energy subsidies on cropland

Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would end the federal subsidies incentivizing the development of productive agricultural land for wind and solar energy production. 

Congressman Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin re-introduced the FARM or Future Agriculture Retention & Maintenance Act would eliminate the large subsidies to developers who install wind and solar generation on productive farmland. “You’re seeing thousands of acres of productive agricultural land in Wisconsin that are being sidelined or are being converted to this energy production.

Randall Woodruff is a 4^th generation farmer from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin who partners with his two brothers to raise beef and row crops.  He says they’ve been resisting the pressure from alternative energy investors. “For the last two years, they’ve been really hounding us to get a contract to put ours in for the next thirty-five years.”

Woodruff says federally subsidized wind and solar projects have also made it hard to rent or buy productive farmland in his area. “You can’t afford it for what land is going for. You can’t feasibly make a profit on it.”

Tiffany says the current situation is not good for either energy security or food security, and he’d like to have a hearing on the FARM Act held in America’s Heartland.

Note: This bill, the Future Agriculture Retention & Maintenance Act should not be confused with another pair of bills in the House and Senate being referred to as the FARM Act, the Foreign Adversary Risk Management Act, which was just introduced to control foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.