‘Our old way of life will be gone forever’: The tenant farmers targeted by solar developers | Climate News

Just 0.1% of farmland is at present taken by solar panels – just like the world claimed by Christmas bushes. But productive farmland is targeted by solar developers, leaving farmers like Andrew Dakin with little say.

It’s a frosty morning on Kidsley Farm in Derbyshire, a uncommon factor on this unusually heat winter.

Andrew Dakin’s beef herd is housed within the old brick barns, their breath steaming within the chill air.

Alongside scuttling chickens and tractors of various vintages, that is the very picture of a conventional farmyard. But for the way lengthy? Andrew is a tenant farmer and his landlord, who owns the land, desires to show his pasture right into a solar farm.

“Our old way of life will be gone forever. And I’ve worked on this farm all my life, seven days a week. I’ve not been on holiday since I was 15. Not because I didn’t want to, but I like being here on the farm.”

His household has labored the land right here for 94 years. His mom nonetheless lives with him within the farmhouse. Although he would be allowed to remain in his dwelling and is being provided some compensation, with the grazing changed by photovoltaic panels, the job would be gone.

“It’ll all be fenced off with 10ft-high deer fencing. I think solar panels have got a part to play on house roofs, factory roofs and brownfield sites.”

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But each political events have enormous ambitions for solar: the federal government desires 5 instances as a lot energy from the solar by 2035 and delivering that with out touching farmland is implausible in response to many consultants, together with Chris Hewett from Solar Energy UK.

“We are in a climate emergency and we do need to deploy this technology very quickly because climate change is the greatest threat to food security,” he says.

“If we don’t solve that, farms are not going to be viable in the future. I think all siting needs to be done sensitively and if businesses are affected there needs to be compensation.”

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Currently, simply 0.1% of farmland is taken by solar panels – just like the world claimed by Christmas bushes – they usually can be mixed with sheep grazing and even some cropland. But in areas with good grid connections, productive farmland is targeted by solar developers.

Farmers who personal their land may see this as a monetary alternative however tenants like Andrew Dakin don’t have any say.

George Dunn, who runs the Tenant Farmers Association, says: “It’s turning into ever extra frequent. Just about each week I get one other TFA member calling me to say that they’ve an enormous solar scheme that is going to both engulf their farm or take a big half of their farm.

“People are actually in tears on the telephone saying the years of enterprise, years of funding they’ve been put to that holding will be misplaced. We’re speaking about hundreds of acres being taken out.”

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The transition to renewable vitality will present new jobs and alternatives. But it comes at a value for farmers like Andrew Dakin.

“I don’t know what I’d do without the farm. It’s in my blood. Going to the market and talking to my farmer friends and about our experiences the previous week. That would all be gone. Life would never be the same again,” says Mr Dakin.

Part of Mr Dakin’s farm used to be an opencast coal mine. The widespread closure of that business was a bitter episode in current historical past.

National Energy transitions can be painful.