On August 19, 2025, Secretary Rollins said “Our prime farmland should not be wasted and replaced with green new deal subsidized solar panels. It has been disheartening to see our beautiful farmland displaced by solar projects, especially in rural areas that have strong agricultural heritage. One of the largest barriers of entry for new and young farmers is access to land. Subsidized solar farms have made it more difficult for farmers to access farmland by making it more expensive and less available. We are no longer allowing businesses to use your taxpayer dollars to fund solar projects on prime American farmland, and we will no longer allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in our USDA-funded projects.”
A new journal article from Bacon et al. (2025) recently looked at effects of large-scale solar installations on rangelands, arid landscapes critical for grazing, biodiversity, and carbon storage, disruption of ecosystem services with immediate and long-term consequences. Based on a global assessment of solar park impacts (Hernandez et al., 2019) and new, summarized data from Bacon et al. (2025), we continue to documented, research-based cascading effects on biodiversity, soil, water cycles, and climate regulation, exacerbated by construction, operation, repairs, and eventual panel degradation.
