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Landowners call for scrapping of plans to ban solar energy from England’s farmland
(The Guardian, 22 Oct 2022) Farmers say having solar sites allows them to subsidise food production during less successful years.
Farmers have urged whoever succeeds Liz Truss as UK prime minister to abandon plans to ban solar energy from most of England’s farmland, arguing that it would hurt food security by cutting off a vital income stream.
Truss, who resigned on Thursday, and her environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, hoped to ban solar from about 41% of the land area of England, or about 58% of agricultural land, the Guardian revealed last week.
They planned to do this by reclassifying less productive farmland as “best and most valuable”, making it more difficult to use for energy infrastructure.
Members of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which represents 33,000 landowners, told the Guardian having solar on their less productive land allowed them to subsidise food production during less successful years, as well as providing cheap power for their estates and homes in their local area.
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