Farmers are being booted off their land in a drive for more solar power, former union chief warns
By Paul Homewood
h/t Patsy Lacey
From the Daily Mail
The former head of Britain’s farming union yesterday spoke out against large-scale solar farms, declaring ‘there’s a huge amount not to like’.
But Minette Batters warned they will continue to be built while her members faced uncertainty about the future of dairy and arable farming – and while wealthy investors are free to buy up large chunks of the countryside.
Ms Batters, the ex-president of the National Farmers’ Union, also highlighted ‘horrific examples’ where tenant farmers are being booted off land for huge solar schemes so the landowner can make more money.
She said such changes of land use will continue while investors including overseas financiers and private equity firms are able to buy up huge chunks of the rural landscape unchecked, warning: ‘The country is up for sale’.
Ms Batters called for the next government to prioritise a new land strategy, so protections are given to traditional farming and its economic value is properly-acknowledged.
Ms Batters warned that solar farms will continue to be built while her members faced uncertainty about the future of dairy and arable farming (pictured: A proposed 1,400-acre site for a solar farm in Chickerell, Dorset)
She added: ‘We are a country up for sale. We are selling off land to people who don’t pay their taxes here. It does have to change.’
She said she could understand opposition to solar farms – but also had sympathy for farmers cashing in on such projects because they provide a guaranteed, index-linked income for decades.
‘You can understand at the moment, from a farmer’s perspective… £1,200 a hectare (per year), index-linked, locked in for 20 years, what’s not to like?’ she said.
‘For everybody else, there’s a huge amount not to like. This is the trouble with a solar farm. There will be one beneficiary.’
But Ms Batters said that in some cases, farmers themselves have been forced to leave their farms to make way for solar farms if they are tenants of larger landowners.
She said: ‘We are seeing horrific examples of some land owners taking land back from tenants to put into solar.’
Ms Batters criticised how land ownership by wealthy investors including private equity firms is being allowed to proliferate – and called for action.
Citing the debt-fuelled private equity takeover of supermarket chain Morrisons, which the Daily Mail campaigned against, she said: ‘We saw what happened with Morrisons. We might not have a British-owned supermarket in 10 years.
‘Now, private equity has moved into land. The country is up for sale.
‘I remember having a conversation with (former Chancellor) Kwasi Kwarteng. He said, you can’t be a free market one day and not the next.
‘We are a country up for sale. We are selling off land to people who don’t pay their taxes here. It does have to change.’
Ms Batters called for the next government to prioritise a new land strategy, so protections are given to traditional farming and its economic value is properly-acknowledged.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Kwarteng doesn’t seem to realise that we don’t have a free market when it comes to renewables.
Correct. Govt subsidies destroy the free market. The solution is no subsidies for solar, in particular no subsidies if on not mounted on buildings.
Just wait til you get Labour’s Great British Energy! With the power of the state behind them, they’ll be able to condemn every square inch of the Sceptred Isle.
Septic Isle please.
I predict that Great British Energy will produce………..Nothing but massive losses, even if they dabble in the Energy market, they will manage to buy at the wrong price, sell at the wrong price, be unable to correctly bill, have to increase staffing, whilst simultaneously reducing the numbers of hours “worked” to give a fair Work Life balance. Just as every single monopoly, it will be inefficient, wasteful, loss making and each and every appointed director will be given a peerage.
Agreed.
Governments don’t make business decisions; they make political decisions. It will be a disaster. We’re going to find out just how far “saving the planet” can get them.
Avoch…………… ( spitting it out! ) Hypocrites … the load of them! Following the Gravy train until they are sick of the flavour. Wake up and smell the coffee ? It’s ROTTEN !
Exactly. Farmers were very happy to milk subsidies and quotas and have barriers to cheaper foreign food so we all had to pay higher prices.
Minette Batters is yet another person who won’t speak out against this wasteful destruction of farmland when she is in a position of influence.
At the Oxford Farming Conference in January 2019, NFU President Minette Batters announced the NFU’s ambition to achieve net zero for agriculture by 2040.
https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/achieving-net-zero-meeting-the-climate-change-challenge/
From the NFU link
Adam Twine, organic dairy and arable farmer
Five 50 metre-tall wind turbines on Mr Twine’s farm generate 11 GWh per year. This goes back to the grid and supplies an average of 2,500 houses. The solar farm generates electricity for around 1,500 houses. He also has PV solar panels on the roof of one barn, the electricity from which is used to run his dairy parlour, with the excess energy going into the grid. In 2009, Mr Twine set up the Farm Carbon Cutting Toolkit (FCCT) to look at how he could translate environmental improvements into a farm practice advisory service.
He also has PV solar panels on the roof of one barn. It must be a very flat barn.
With reference to Mr Twine and his organisation, FCCT: I just feel there’s an absence of a couple of consonants in that acronym.
Because up till now farmers have been milking the taxpayer more than they milk cows.
Yes, and her bleating would be more convincing if the NFU under her leadership had not been boasting about being the first farming union in the world to be aiming for net zero. In the same vein, radio’s Farming Today almost daily has someone, often a farmer, referring to ‘the climate emergency’, invariably with definite article, and never any questioning as to whether there is one from presenter or contributor.
As CO2 is plant food and more of it means more food, the NFU must be the only trade union working to diminish the income of its members.
Stressing the system comrade, until the point of collapse.
This why I insist on calling ‘Solar Farms’, ‘Solar Ex-farms’!
Ms Batters, the ex-president of the National Farmers’ Union, also highlighted ‘horrific examples’ where tenant farmers are being booted off land for huge solar schemes so the landowner can make more money.
Echoes of the Highland clearances, when crofters were evicted and often had to emigrate to make way for large-scale sheep farming.
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Highland-Clearances/
Not really. The solar farms are all subsidised and guaranteed by us poor consumers thanks to the state. Of course landowners will do whatever makes them most money but the farmers should be crying foul about the subsidies – but how can they do that when they’ve been living off them for decades?
Is having it both ways is being overlooked?
When it comes to solar farms, sheep are great groundskeepers
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/shepherds-can-cash-in-on-their-sheep-grazing-around-solar-panels/
There is this: According to the doctrine of “highest and best use,” in any case where the market value of real property is sought, that value must be based on that use that would produce the highest value for a property, regardless of its actual current use.
The issue is corrupted by the evil Carbon Dioxide. The government’s policies incentivize a market value based on a false axiom. This won’t end well; too late for the folks Ms. Batters worries about.
Warming due to the accumulation of CO2 in our atmosphere is the greatest HOAX in the history of mankind!
And this can be proven.
See: “Scientific proof that CO2 does NOT cause global warming”
Click to access WJARR-2024-0884.pdf
O/T Meanwhile here’s the latest hysterical rubbish from the Guardian and Sir David King. It’s so full of climate hogwash it genuinely takes one’s breath away.
Humanity’s survival is still within our grasp – just. But only if we take these radical steps | David King | The Guardian
You are all going to die unless you immediately accept my ideas about how to run society and the economy are correct!
oh dear much corruption and gravy trains and very stupid politicians who created the Climate Change Committee
WW2 demonstrated beyond doubt how vulnerable Britain was to shortages in food supply. We are currently about 60% self sufficient having been as high as 80% in 1980. Industrialization of agricultural land with useless solar farms leaves us vulnerable to geopolitical events. It won’t even provide power security. A country that cannot feed itself is very worrying.
It really isn’t 1940 any more. And if we can’t get food from the US or Europe, we will run out of awful lot of other things very quickly too.
Im unsure what these evil foreign investors are going to do with the land and the supermarkets that’s so bad? The land remains here, the customers for the supermarkets do to. As for not paying tax here, please, not these myths again. The biggest problem in terms of land and food is our very own government.
But there’s more on the way: Evil ? Dunno – but why sell! ‘ evil foreign investors are going to do with the’ ROYAL MAIL, too. Why doesn’t Charlie-Boyo & Co buy it ?
If it’s that damn important, why couldn’t they get the current head of the union?
Cos Batters is just stirring up s#it. And the Mail is happy to print it.
It’s clear she’s communist thru and thru. She wants government to take over the land. She’s not here to protect the farmers, she’s here to take their land. It’s not fair the wealthy can buy it; government must take it over.
Coming next:
Meaningful water use strategy.
Meaningful food use strategy.
Meaningful energy use strategy.
The strategy:
Government takeover.
I’ve been told that a solar panel will generate 959kwh a year. Household maybe ten or 9500 @ 15p equals c £1450 a year. Cap cost £10,000? I’l be dead by then. Is it better for large farms or is it taxpayer subsidy?¥
Its all subsidy. Without subsidies none of these green field solar estates would be built.
And local authorities are a part of this.
They borrow from the Debt Management Office without any questions asked about viability and they buy food producing farms to build solar and wind farms. It is a shocking threat to council tax payers and anyone who wants to eat.
I can understand that if we have to have these “Solar” farms, the correct location should be on unproductive land ie: hills where farmers have struggled for centuries to make it pay- alternatives include placing them onto every large commercial roof especially warehousing and supermarkets- but to take productive arable land out of food/dairy/beef production is madness…………but then again, the whole Ponzi scheme aka Not Zero is madness, exemplified by the requirement to pay huge subsidies just to “prove” the Renewables are the cheapest source of Energy- the mathematical equation of utter bollocks.
we do not need these solar farms, they are extremely poor sources of electricity for many reasons. Unfortunately our technically illiterate government doesn’t know this and want to build more.
Many of these farms seem to include battery storage which can be used to sell stored power at the highest price (When grid demand peaks) even if they are charged from grid sources rather than their own solar generation given that U.K. solar generates very little for about four months of the year when demand is highest, i.e. winter.
What happened to journalism that used to research and expose such scams, it no longer seems to exist?
… and our “pals” in France : “
France
Targets for organic farming cancelled
Parliament has approved the first article of the national law on agricultural direction. According to associations, environmental efforts are falling by the wayside ……. Parliament has approved the first article of the national law on agricultural direction. According to associations, environmental efforts are falling by the wayside..”
Thank heavens for that. Organic farming halves yields and triples cost for no better food. Organic is medieval voodoo.
Not the first time tenants gave been evicted to make way for more profitable “crops” in this country.
OTT
After appearing as if there might be less snow than usual in Greenland for 23/24 season it has started snowing again:
Investigative Journalism died when the creature known as Blair took office, since then all we have had is a compliant MSM pouring out Government propaganda on the hour, every hour- the John Pilger’s of this world are gone, now the key consideration is, just how do I keep my job and expenses. The Not Zero drive is the greatest con trick since Ponzi, even greater in terms of economic damage than the State Pension that has no funding, no reserves and was never meant to payout to the sheer number of recipients, ditto the benefits scam- we were all supposed to die young or certainly within the first three to four years of retirement, benefits were supposed to be a poor safety net that forced you back to work, perfect investigative stories but taboo if the journalist wants to “get on”.
A contact of mine says: “I don’t think Minette Batters has ever been in favour of solar farms, but knowing a bit about how the NFU HQ works from my Fisons days, I am not surprised she could not say much about them when she was in post.”
This is from the ex-President who oversaw the NFU’s commitment to Net Zero by 2040