The federal government will eliminate all U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that use taxpayer dollars to subsidize solar panels on productive farmland, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said during an event at the Wilson County – Tennessee State Fair event on Aug. 18.
She was the keynote speaker at the Future Farmers of America Ham Breakfast. A fundraiser for FFA, the event at the Farm Bureau Expo Center at the fairgrounds in Lebanon drew a sold-out crowd of about 1,200.
Rollins, an ally of President Donald Trump, described eminent domain, development and subsidized solar farms as contributors to diminishing and unaffordable farmland.
“One of the largest barriers of entry for new and young farmers is access to land,” Rollins said. “Subsidized solar farms have made it more and more and even almost entirely impossible for new farmers to access farmland by making it more expensive and less available.”
Rollins was critical of previous government policies “in pursuits of its own misguided ideaolgical vision to become an agent and embedder of farmland destruction,” the secretary said. “But that’s exactly what has happened with the removal of farmland from production so that vast fields of solar panels could be built upon them.”
Rollins also announced that $90 million has been committed to 13 rural development projects in Tennessee.
“It is real that farmers are going through some crisis they’ve been dealing with the last few years,” State Sen. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, said. “In Tennessee our number one industry is ag(riculture). So we want to make sure that we are very cognizant on how we can support our farmers in Tennessee.”
Fellow Republicans Gov. Bill Lee, U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and U.S. Rep. John Rose were also among the speakers who emphasized the importance of agriculture in Tennessee and encouraged the FFA students at the breakfast.
A highlight of the 10th annual breakfast is an auction of a two grand champion hams – a Packer style ham and country ham that each sold for $35,000 that go toward FFA programs statewide.
There are approximately 34,000 FFA members in Tennessee, according to organizers.
