By Faridat Salifu
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will no longer support wind and solar projects on productive farmland, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Monday in a post on X.
The decision marks the latest move by President Donald Trump’s administration to restrict renewable energy development, which Trump has criticized as unreliable, costly, and tied to Chinese supply chains.
“Millions of acres of prime farmland is left unusable so Green New Deal subsidized solar panels can be built. This destruction of our farms and prime soil is taking away the futures of the next generation of farmers and the future of our country,” Rollins wrote.
The USDA has provided more than $2 billion for renewable energy projects under its Rural Energy for America Program and has supported clean energy initiatives for rural electric cooperatives, according to agency data.
The USDA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A 2024 USDA study found that wind and solar farms affected about 424,000 acres of rural land in 2020 — less than 0.05% of the nearly 900 million acres of U.S. farmland — and that most of this land remained in agricultural production after project development.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration had backed solar and wind projects in rural areas as part of efforts to reduce emissions and expand access to affordable clean energy.
