Solar farms leave tenant farmers fearing for future

Solar developers are adopting an ‘opportunistic approach' to obtain tenanted land where a 'cheap grid connection' can be sourced. Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) chief executive George Dunn said in the last few weeks alone, five tenant farmers had come forward with concerns over land being replaced by solar, including one farmer who said if planning permission was granted their farm business would be ‘extinguished overnight'. Solar farms One affected farmer, who asked to remain anonymous, said his local authority landlords had given him contradictory messaging on how much land would be acquired and he had failed to receive formal notice of the planning application 21 days before submission. Criticising the ‘out of date nature' of his Agricultural Holdings Act agreement and the lack of regulation and scrutiny of solar development, he said it had led to a ‘wild west situation as developers and landowners scramble to gain planning permission, before stricter planning controls are introduced'. Food security The farmer said almost a third of the land proposed for the project was the best and most versatile. "Electricity can be harvested from rooftops, wheat cannot," he added. The farmer had already been forced to downsize his beef herd and said the 'ongoing uncertainty' meant he could not apply for agri-environmental schemes, putting his business at a 'further financial disadvantage.' Read also: Tenant farmers inquiry must be more than a 'talking shop' Environment schemes want 'tenant farmers gone' with land being taken back in hand by landlords Lack of investment causing pollution on tenant farms Farmers concern over short term tenancies The farmer was inspired to speak out after following a campaign by Emma and Robert Sturdy, who recently won their three-year battle to stop a solar farm development on their tenanted land in North Yorkshire. Defra Last week the Conservative MP, Sir Edward Leigh, said solar panels belonged on rooftops of factories and homes, not on good farmland. This week (October 24), Defra Secretary Therese Coffey MP was questioned by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee, in which she acknowledged there was a ‘risk' to tenants, but it was ‘ultimately down to local councils to decide whether or not solar farms are right.' Rock review Baroness Kate Rock, who published a recent review into the tenanted sector, added: "No Government wants to intervene in the private decisions of owners of land, but where those private decisions are contrary to public policy either in respect of maintaining best and most versatile agricultural land for food security or protecting the area of land within the tenanted sector, there is clearly a role for Government to intervene." She said landlords who displace tenants 'should not have access to public money' when changing the use of their land.