Fred Forbes Sr. drove his gray Dodge pickup truck up a Cortlandville hill, past fields of soybeans and corn, climbing as the path dissolved from asphalt to dirt, then nothing more than greenish-yellow weeds.

He reached a clearing and got out, looking downhill over Riley Road, west toward Cortland. The city was almost completely obscured by a treeline and hills.

“There’s no question, it’s beautiful up here,” Forbes said.

The land behind him, where rows of corn were grown for decades to feed dairy cows, will soon sprout rows of solar panels when Florida-based NextEra Energy develops a solar power farm on the 60 acres Forbes is selling to it. The project awaits final town approval.

The same scenario is playing out on farms across upstate New York as the state presses ahead with its goal to generate far more energy by renewable sources, such as solar, hydro and wind power.

That brings into conflict efforts to curtail climate change with the need for food production and farmers’ property rights.

Solar companies can typically afford to pay eight to 20 times more per acre than farmers leasing land for crops, and no regulation prohibits them from leasing the most productive, prime farmland, even when less productive land is available.

Picture prime upstate farmland — large, flat, wide open tracts in rural areas where land is cheap — and you’ve just described the perfect location for a solar farm.

Virtually all solar projects in New York are planned upstate, and much of it is near the power grid that will move it to customers.

“We want to preserve open space, we want to protect agricultural land and we want solar power,” said James Hanley, senior public policy analyst for the Empire Center. “We can’t have all three. … We can’t maximize all of them.”

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Losing farmland

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The state set a goal of generating 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% clean energy by 2040 to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. That is up from 27% in 2020.

As it ramped up to meet those objectives, the state created rules to govern clean energy projects of at least 25 megawatts and the Office of Renewable Energy Siting to handle approvals.

However, smaller projects remain under the control of municipal governments.

Estimates of the amount of land needed to reach the state’s renewable energy goals range from 100,000 to 200,000 more acres statewide.

The demand for power will influence how much renewable energy must be generated to meet state goals and how much land is needed for those projects, said Samantha Levy, conservation and climate policy manager for the American Farmland Trust.

For example, increased production of electric cars will add to the demand for power, while increasing energy efficiency in buildings will reduce demand.

Regardless, the power grid must expand to meet anticipated demand and much of that will be built on farmland, said Levy, the American Farmland Trust’s New York state policy expert from 2017 until she moved on to the trust’s national level last fall.

Renewable energy developers are eying farmland to meet the state’s energy goals.

“Anecdotally, we’ve heard that developers are targeting prime farmland because it is easiest to build on,” Levy said.

A Cornell University study found that of the solar developments built as of 2018, 58% were on prime farmland.

Using all of the lesser quality farmland for solar projects would provide for 82 to 85% of the land needed to achieve the state’s energy goals, the study found.

Jack Honor, a development manager for EDF Renewable, which proposes a 600-acre solar farm on land in Homer, Cortlandville and Solon, said Friday the state approval process for large-scale solar projects encourages protection of farmland and his company tries to avoid prime farmland, whenever it can.

“We try to choose sites that have a low percentage of prime farmland,” Honor said, noting 7% of the 600 acres of its Cortland County project would be on prime farmland. “It’s impossible to avoid prime farmland.”

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Competition increases costs

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Paul Fouts, a third-generation dairy farmer in Groton, said he has heard that a proposed 1,000-acre solar farm on the border of Groton and Lansing is gobbling up nearly all of the land in that area that farmers had leased.

That could prompt farmers to spend more to buy feed that could have grown themselves, or perhaps reducing their herds. Both would hit dairy farmers — the largest agriculture sector in the greater Cortland area — particularly hard.

The prices dairy farmers get for their product is set by the federal government. Since they cannot readily increase revenue, higher costs are more difficult for dairy farmers to absorb.

“There are a lot of ups and downs, a lot of volatility in the dairy prices,” said Janice Degni, South Central New York dairy and field crops team leader for Cornell Cooperative Extension.

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What is “prime”

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Forbes said he supports renewable energy, but firmly believes solar projects should be kept off prime farmland. The land he is selling is not prime agricultural land, which is mostly found in Cortland County’s valleys.

Solar farms are just the latest form of development to encroach on prime farmland in Cortland County’s valleys. For decades, large sections along Route 13 in Cortlandville and elsewhere have been covered by housing, commercial and industrial developments.

In recent years, the town of Cortlandville began to build Gutchess Lumber Park along Route 13 in South Cortland and solar panels have been installed on private land farther south and other prime farmland.

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Farmers’ rights

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In many cases, the revenue from selling or leasing land keeps farms in business.

“If they have a guaranteed lease payment, that helps the farm be more viable,” said Linda Garrett, New York regional director of the American Farmland Trust.

Forbes said the main reason he sold land to a solar project was to get a return on his investment and bolster retirement.

“Other people have put into 401k’s for retirement,” he said. “Farmers have put into buildings, land and equipment.”

Any effort to protect farmland should be balanced with protecting the rights of landowners, said Elizabeth Wolters, deputy director of public policy for the New York State Farm Bureau, which advocates both for farmland preservation and farmers’ rights. “We have a strong fundamental belief in private property rights.”

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Opposition forms

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State and local laws do not do enough to avoid, minimize and mitigate the effects of solar power projects on prime farmland, said farmers and agriculture advocates.

The latest iteration of New York’s rules came in 2021 during the state budget process, when it created a process with no public debate or input as the COVID-19 pandemic was quickly taking a hold in the state, Levy said.

“It is happening really fast, catching communities unprepared,” Garrett said.

The state approval process immediately came under fire from agriculture and land preservation interests, including the State Farm Bureau and the American Farmland Trust, who argued the rules were inadequate.

“We said they’re not strong enough to protect farmland and communities,” Levy said.

The rules stated that steps should be taken “to the greatest extent practicable,” to protect prime farmland, but the vague language left developers with a gaping loophole to circumvent the law’s intent, she said.

“There’s nothing in there truly with teeth,” Levy said.

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Problems identified

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An immediate problem created by the loss of farmland to solar farms is the competition for the remaining land. Farmers need to lease land to grow crops for their herds or spread manure in an environmentally responsible way, Fouts said.

The prices offered to buy or lease land for solar projects are hard for landowners to pass up.

It typically costs about $75 per year to lease an acre of farmland between Cortland and Groton, Fouts said; prime farmland can cost twice that.

Hillside land with poor soils leases for between $50 and $75 an acre per year, Forbes said.

By comparison, EDF Renewables offers to pay $1,200 per year for an acre, he said.

“The essential problem is those who need to lease land can’t compete with the solar developers,” said James Hanley, senior policy analyst for the Empire Center. “The solar developers can outbid them by a lot.”

“I’m hearing anecdotally that it is impacting prices (for farmers to lease land), especially areas that are already facing development pressure, such as the Hudson Valley and Long Island,” Wolters said.

Leases typically last 30 to 40 years with renewal clauses.

Losing access to nearby farmland to lease means farmers have to buy feed for their animals to replace what they would grow on leased land or travel farther to lease other land, which takes more time to move required equipment.

Loss of farmland has a ripple effect, as it hurts sales for companies that sell fertilizer, and equipment, Forbes said. Businesses such as restaurants could also lose sales if their customers lose jobs or at least see revenue decline, Fouts said.

Degni said state and local laws do not do enough to protect farmland.

American Farmland Trust also emphasizes the harm to a community when farmland is lost, and is urging the state to consider this in its rules concerning renewable energy production.

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Possible solutions

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State lawmakers, state agencies and agriculture organizations have been working to better protect farmland since the renewable energy siting rules were created in 2021.

NYSERDA, the state Department of Agriculture and Markets and representatives of groups with an interest and expertise in agricultural issues have formed a workgroup that is studying the issues, Garrett said.

The group has been meeting for about a year and a half and plans call for a proposal to be submitted to the state Legislature for laws to improve farmland protections, Levy said.

Without incentives, such as tax benefits, to preserve prime agricultural land, or fees and other disincentives for those who build on that land, developers will go the easiest route and use prime farmland when it suits their needs, Garrett said.

Fouts said he has a suggestion.

“There’s a lot of government assistance to the solar farms,” he said. “In my opinion, that government assistance should be tied to how productive the soils are in agriculture. I don’t think they should get government funds to develop on prime farmland. … If there was no government assistance, I think agriculture could compete.”

American Farmland Trust also works with county planning departments to propose local laws that steer solar projects away from prime farmland, Garrett said.

Degni said the clock is ticking on farmland protection.

“There’s never going to be any more farmland than there is today,” she said. “It’s only going to diminish.”