Save our farms, no to solar

[Pixelpeep 135]

Saw this sticker on the back of a car this morning and it fried my noodle.

If a farmer chooses to put solar panels in their field instead of attempting to grow crops, surely that is their business?!

As far as i am aware, wildlife still lives and a lot of the time, whole new natural environments form underneath these panels as they are not flat on the floor.


Farming in general will be a lot tougher if we don't get a handle on our fossil fuel usage, so unless farmers are being forced by 'greedy energy companies' to give their land over to them, why would anyone object to solar farms?

[Ransoman]

It's silly, almost all farms in the country have several large buildings they could easily cover in panels. It won't affect their growing/harvesting capacity at all. It's a win win as far as I am concerned.

[Mammasaid]

Because it's taking good agricultural land out of use.

It will decrease our food security at the expense of a small decrease in carbon emissions.

At the moment I'd rather have more viable crops than rely on more imports from abroad.

[Mammasaid]

Ransoman said:

It's silly, almost all farms in the country have several large buildings they could easily cover in panels. It won't affect their growing/harvesting capacity at all. It's a win win as far as I am concerned.

I agree, and we'll be adding solar panels to ours when we can. However covering prime agricultural land with solar makes no sense. it's generally large corporations doing this through a middle man to offset their carbon emissions, it's not Farmer Jack doing it on his own.

[Pixelpeep 135]

Mammasaid said:

Because it's taking good agricultural land out of use.

It will decrease our food security at the expense of a small decrease in carbon emissions.

At the moment I'd rather have more viable crops than rely on more imports from abroad.

With the greatest respect, that's not your choice to make, how someone earns a living. If a farmer is struggling to make a living with crops, why shouldn't they look at alternatives for their land?

Once we get the clean energy sorted we could look at making controlled environments to grow crops ?

For those who feel passionate about it, why not become farmers themselves ?

[RizzoTheRat]

Mammasaid said:

Because it's taking good agricultural land out of use.

It will decrease our food security at the expense of a small decrease in carbon emissions.

At the moment I'd rather have more viable crops than rely on more imports from abroad.

Probably a much smaller impact on the amount of good agricultural land than you might think. When setaside came in the reduction in output was a very small fraction of the reduction in land area as people set side thier lowest yield bits of ground.

[Tom8]

Farmers also been told to turn agricultural land over to trees too. Soon we will have fields of solar and trees and nothing to eat, but we will at least satisfy the global warming myth.

[ARHarh]

Round here the sheep happily graze around solar panels. The grass may not grow so well under panels but there will still be grass to eat. We need electricity as much as we need cabbages and sheep.

[ATG]

Prime agricultural land is not getting taken out of production for solar, rewilding, set-aside etc. Small amounts of less productive land, e.g. rough pasture on a 45 degree slope is. Very emotive, but not a problem in the real world.

[sjg]

Ransoman said:

It's silly, almost all farms in the country have several large buildings they could easily cover in panels. It won't affect their growing/harvesting capacity at all. It's a win win as far as I am concerned.

I stayed in a cottage on an arable farm last year, had a bit of a tour and the barn roofs were all covered in solar panels plus another array down the edge of a field and some battery storage which ran the 90kW grain dryer and things like the ASHPs for their house and cottage, and charging their car. Had a dozen large wind turbines too, although not operated by them, just leased the land.

Lots of interesting agrivoltaic work going on too, it needn't just be plain grass fields with dense panels on top. Raise the panels and there's plenty that can grow underneath, and the shade can reduce how much water is needed in hotter places.

[yellowjack]

Mammasaid said:

Ransoman said:

It's silly, almost all farms in the country have several large buildings they could easily cover in panels. It won't affect their growing/harvesting capacity at all. It's a win win as far as I am concerned.

I agree, and we'll be adding solar panels to ours when we can. However covering prime agricultural land with solar makes no sense. it's generally large corporations doing this through a middle man to offset their carbon emissions, it's not Farmer Jack doing it on his own.

This. All day long.

Food security is a massive issue for us. We don't produce enough to feed ourselves on our islands. War in Ukraine has brought this to the fore. Or at least it should have. The UK is full of large buildings. Literally acres of roof sitting around in the sunshine all day. We shouldn't be putting a single agricultural acre under solar panels until/unless every factory, warehouse, shopping centre and office block roof is already covered with the damned things. Piecemeal installation of panels on domestic dwellings isn't going to make enough of a dent in our carbon reduction targets. But Corporate Big Boys can make big strides without reducing our capacity to grow/raise our own food.

A good example is a bank near where I live. JP Morgan in Bournemouth have built a covering over their open air car parks specifically to support solar panels. Now THAT is a 'Win/Win'. The roof protects employees' cars, and the solar panels harvest energy where before there was only a huge asphaly car park. Turning agricultural land over to solar is a very short term, short sighted solution, imho. "People" seem far too concerned about how they're going to charge their cars and tech going forward, but few seem to give a second thought as to where our food comes from.

Then there's the other debate. Vegans. Being a vegan or a vegetarian is all well and good. But they seem to have missed their geography lessons at school. Because a lot of farmland in the UK isn't suitable as arable farms. You can't harvest crops on the side of a hill, not with the machinery we currently have anyway. So we need livestock farming going forward, to make efficient use of land which is productive, yet not suitable for cereal/oil crops.

[kambites]

Mammasaid said:

Because it's taking good agricultural land out of use.

It will decrease our food security at the expense of a small decrease in carbon emissions.

At the moment I'd rather have more viable crops than rely on more imports from abroad.

Even if it was prime farm land being used (which it usually isn't) do you think being self sufficient in terms of food is more important in the current political climate than being self-sufficient in terms of energy? That's an interesting assertion to say the least!

[anonymous-user]

Tom8 said:

Farmers also been told to turn agricultural land over to trees too. Soon we will have fields of solar and trees and nothing to eat, but we will at least satisfy the global warming myth.

Myth!?

[kambites]

F20CN16 said:

Tom8 said:

Farmers also been told to turn agricultural land over to trees too. Soon we will have fields of solar and trees and nothing to eat, but we will at least satisfy the global warming myth.

Myth!?

Don't feed the conspiracy theorist.

[anonymous-user]

kambites said:

F20CN16 said:

Tom8 said:

Farmers also been told to turn agricultural land over to trees too. Soon we will have fields of solar and trees and nothing to eat, but we will at least satisfy the global warming myth.

Myth!?

Don't feed the conspiracy theorist.

I see what you did there.

[Mammasaid]

F20CN16 said:

Tom8 said:

Farmers also been told to turn agricultural land over to trees too. Soon we will have fields of solar and trees and nothing to eat, but we will at least satisfy the global warming myth.

Myth!?

Not told, but heavily incentivised.

It's a strange old world where we grow trees to burn rather than food to eat...

[ATG]

Mammasaid said:

F20CN16 said:

Tom8 said:

Farmers also been told to turn agricultural land over to trees too. Soon we will have fields of solar and trees and nothing to eat, but we will at least satisfy the global warming myth.

Myth!?

Not told, but heavily incentivised.

It's a strange old world where we grow trees to burn rather than food to eat...

Why is that strange? Plenty of upland ground is currently used to raise sheep, and it is only viable because it is heavily subsidised. Why not swap that out for forestry given we need the timber and the carbon sink it provides, or indeed re-establish peat moorland as a carbon sink and a water buffer?

If you mean turning over arable land to grow elephant grass, willow, etc just to chuck it into a power station, then, yes, that's pretty silly, in much the same way as making bioethanol out of maize doesn't make much sense. But is anyone actually doing this stuff in the UK?

Edited by ATG on Tuesday 17th May 12:14

[Mammasaid]

ATG said:

Mammasaid said:

F20CN16 said:

Tom8 said:

Farmers also been told to turn agricultural land over to trees too. Soon we will have fields of solar and trees and nothing to eat, but we will at least satisfy the global warming myth.

Myth!?

Not told, but heavily incentivised.

It's a strange old world where we grow trees to burn rather than food to eat...

Why is that strange? Plenty of upland ground is currently used to raise sheep, and it is only viable because it is heavily subsidised. Why not swap that out for forestry given we need the timber and the carbon sink it provides, or indeed re-establish peat moorland as a carbon sink and a water buffer?

But it's not upland moorland though, it's flat pasture land that shouldn't be taken out of food production. I see it all the time around where we live in the Eden Valley.

E.g. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.6513513,-2.71278...

Edited by Mammasaid on Tuesday 17th May 12:20

[ATG]

Mammasaid said:

ATG said:

Mammasaid said:

F20CN16 said:

Tom8 said:

Farmers also been told to turn agricultural land over to trees too. Soon we will have fields of solar and trees and nothing to eat, but we will at least satisfy the global warming myth.

Myth!?

Not told, but heavily incentivised.

It's a strange old world where we grow trees to burn rather than food to eat...

Why is that strange? Plenty of upland ground is currently used to raise sheep, and it is only viable because it is heavily subsidised. Why not swap that out for forestry given we need the timber and the carbon sink it provides, or indeed re-establish peat moorland as a carbon sink and a water buffer?

But it's not upland moorland though, it's flat pasture land that shouldn't be taken out of food production. I see it all the time around where we live in the Eden Valley.

E.g. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.6513513,-2.71278...

Edited by Mammasaid on Tuesday 17th May 12:20

Yeah, as per my edit above, I don't think that sort of thing is likely to have much of a future. Taking pasture out of production to grow biomass is better than taking out arable, but it still seems a pretty daft way of trying to produce electricity.

[HustleRussell]

I think the idea that we need to be self-sustaining in terms of produce is a bit misguided. I am not sure that it is a practically achievable goal now or at any time in the future because of our population and distribution (geographically and professionally). Secondly we have become used to having access to produce from all over the world and have developed a taste for it. In an international free market economy we will naturally source products abroad where they aren't possible or economical to produce locally.

I don't think the situation in Ukraine influences this one iota- it just reduces our access to certain allocations of produce, reducing supply and increasing cost.