BLOGS

Meet Md. solar industry's newest foe: farmers

Jeremy Cox
jcox6@delmarvanow.com
A large group of solar panels sit on a solar farm site on Neal Parker Road near Oak Hall.

The booming solar energy industry in Maryland has just made a powerful enemy: farmers.

For years, the state's agricultural lobby was an ally of the solar industry. The Maryland Farm Bureau, in fact, was a relatively early fan, promoting its support of on-farm solar energy production back in 2010.

The sun has set on that broad level of support.

At their annual meeting in Ocean City from Dec. 4-6, Farm Bureau delegates voted for a new, harsher policy. Here it is in full:

  • We oppose commercial solar energy facilities being considered as an agricultural activity and receiving the same exemptions as an agricultural structure or agland. This would also include receiving the agricultural tax assessment.  
  • We oppose the State of Maryland preemption of local and county land use policy for renewable energy generation projects. 
  • We support removing large scale commercial solar energy generating facilities from the RPS carve-out for solar energy. 
  • We do not support commercial solar energy facilities being built on prime and productive farmland. 
  • Commercial energy facilities should have appropriate riparian buffer and setback requirements. 

As DelmarvaNow reported in November, Eastern Shore farmers are becoming increasingly annoyed by the influx of so-called solar "farms." The sprawling facilities are gobbling up prime farmland, potentially making farming less feasible in the future, they argue.

READ MORE:  Why farmers are worried about the proliferation of solar projects on the Eastern Shore.

The reasoning goes like this: It doesn't take too many large solar projects before a seed store is forced out of business or a manure transport company decides it's no longer economically feasible to travel to a particular area. As the density of farms decreases, so does the viability of profits.

The Farm Bureau's shift could cause waves in next spring's legislative session. The Democrat-controlled body may seek to override Republican Gov. Larry Hogan's veto of a bill passed earlier this year that would have increased the state's renewable energy usage goals.