The British farmers swapping sheep for solar panels

Woolly flocks, cattle and gold-tipped barley have long decorated England’s rural landscape. But now on those pleasant pastures there sometimes sits a very different sight – glaring, bright-blue solar panels.

Paying anything up to around £1,200 per acre each year, solar parks are taking pride of place on land previously home to sheep, cows and crops as cash-strapped farmers try to diversify their incomes in the wake of unpredictable markets.

More and more farmers are leasing their land to developers of the polycrystalline panels, trade unions say, and some even stand to make more from solar panels than sheep this year.

Mark Tory, 41, a farmer in Dorchester, said: “In 2022, the harvest was amazing. Prices were high and costs the year before were low. This year, it’s the complete reverse. Prices have fallen following a rise in input costs. We will make more on solar parks than we will on farming.

“Solar panels pay an awful lot for not very much. There are no costs for us, and we always receive the same income. All you need to do is send some invoices.”

Inflation has driven up farmers’ running costs by around 28.5pc, according to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Farming labour is also in short supply, and supermarkets are continuing to squeeze prices so shoppers spend more.

Mr Tory’s farm was one of the first to host solar panels in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), having begun to lease his land to them back in 2014. While 25 acres are now taken up by solar panels, the remaining 50 are still farmed.

Despite anticipating a larger profit from solar panels than farming this year, Mr Tory said the farm still counts as a trading entity – and therefore remains eligible for the Government’s subsidy scheme. This is because the tax classification is based on income, not profit, of which 50pc must be farming to receive state support.

Mr Tory added: “We would be open to hosting more solar panels. But then you’d be able to see them from the public right of way, which would be a problem in an AONB.”

‘Huge amount of land risks being taken out of production’

Less than 1pc of England’s farmland is currently taken up by solar panels, but there is a worry that this percentage will continue to grow and eat into valuable production space.

Tom Bradshaw, deputy president of the National Farmers Union, said solar parks developed at scale on farmland can have a very sizable impact at a local level – and could lead to a greater reliance nationwide on produce from abroad.

He added: “Farmers are very often looking at diversification because food production alone is no longer viable, which seems completely perverse with 70 million people on an island.

“They will find other things to do with their land at the expense of the country. But we need to be taking more responsibility for our food production. We don’t want to rely on other countries’ production.”

Around half of the UK’s food is imported from overseas, which the not-for-profit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has said already poses a risk of future food shortages and price rises.

Many of these solar panels on leased farmland are hooked up to the National Grid, powering nearby towns. Where there are sizable grid connections, it typically makes sense to develop more solar infrastructure.

Mr Bradshaw said: “In these areas, you end up with multiple thousands of acres of solar panels. This means a huge amount of land being taken out of production, which has a dramatic impact on local communities.

“Suddenly, all four sides of a village are boxed in by solar panels and it takes over the local environment.”

Phil Stocker, chief executive of the National Sheep Association, agreed that farmers “need to be cautious” and avoid damaging Britain’s “food production security”.

He said: “There’s a tendency for solar parks to be big because of the infrastructure required to support them. The power lines need to be able to carry significant levels of electricity.

“There’s a technical problem, which is: how do you enable installations to be small-scale and still contribute to the national energy network?”

‘My milk sells for 36p per litre now, down from 50p’

Andrew Maltby, 60, is a farmer near Yeovil in Somerset. He first leased his land to solar developers in 2017.

Since last year, the price cheesemakers will pay for his cows’ milk has fallen 30pc – from 50p to 36p.

He said: “Frankly, this makes life quite tricky. There’s not one dairy farmer in the country not doing something else – be that letting trailers on Airbnb, selling milk in a machine, or leasing land to solar developers.”

He too anticipates making a greater profit from solar panels than from farming. He leases 60 acres, around 10pc of his total land.

Mr Maltby added: “If your prices drop but your cost base remains fixed, it hurts. I don’t think we’re going to lose too much farmland to solar panels, though.

“In Cornwall, there isn’t even the infrastructure to put up big solar parks.”

‘We nearly lost half our business to solar panels’

Where tenants farm the land but don’t own it, solar panels can have a very adverse impact on their businesses because only the landowner stands to profit from them.

Emma Sturdy, 45, and her family stood to lose nearly half of their farmable land on a 280-acre estate to solar panels.

The trust that owned the land wanted to install solar panels on it. But in the end, North Yorkshire’s strategic planning committee voted against the proposal.

The Fitzwilliam Trust Corporation owns the land in question, and counts Helena Rees-Mogg – wife to Jacob Rees-Mogg – as a director.

Ms Sturdy said: “Sadly, we are seeing a proliferation of large solar developments taking thousands of acres of good farmland out of food production and out of farming.

“Too often, these applications are on our best and most versatile farmland. If the Government is to achieve its ambitions of increasing solar to 70 megawatts by 2035, then it must introduce enforceable regulations for solar on all rooftops and poor or brownfield sites.

“Until they do this, it’s a complete free-for-all. Large scale solar development can deliver colossal profits for the landowner and developer, but can mean immediate disaster for a tenant farmer.”