US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins (pictured centre) has announced that the Department will no longer fund solar panels on productive farmland or allow equipment made by foreign adversaries to be used in USDA-backed projects.
The move was confirmed in Tennessee alongside Governor Bill Lee, Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, Representative John Rose, and USDA deputy secretary Stephen Vaden.
Rollins said subsidised solar projects had displaced farmland and made it harder for young farmers to access land, with Tennessee losing more than 1.2 million acres in the past 30 years.
“Our prime farmland should not be wasted and replaced with green new deal subsidised solar panels,” she said.
“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.”
Governor Lee said farmland is “our national security, our economic future, and our children’s heritage”.
Senator Blackburn added: “Tennessee farmland should be used to grow the crops that feed our state and country, not to house solar panels made by foreign countries.”
USDA said the action will eliminate market distortions and costs imposed on taxpayers by reducing energy subsidies, while prioritising American manufacturing.
Effective immediately, wind and solar are excluded from USDA’s Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Programme, while new restrictions are applied to solar projects under the REAP scheme.
The Department said the reforms “protect farmland so important to our economy, strengthen American agriculture, and put energy independence first”.