The former head of Britain’s farming union yesterday spoke out against large-scale solar farms, saying “there’s a huge amount that don’t like it”.
But Minette Batters warned they would continue to build while its members faced uncertainty over the future of dairy and arable farming – and while wealthy investors were free to buy up large swaths of the countryside.
Ms Batters, a former president of the National Farmers Union, also highlighted “appalling examples” of tenant farmers being forced off land by huge solar systems so the landowner can make more money.
She said such land-use changes would continue while investors including overseas financiers and private equity firms were allowed to buy up huge swathes of the countryside in an uncontrolled manner, warning: “Land is for sale”.
Ms Batters called on the next Government to prioritize a new land strategy so that traditional farming is given protection and its economic value is properly recognised.
She added: “We are a country for sale. We sell land to people who don’t pay taxes here. It has to change.”
Ms Batters was speaking during a debate at the Hay Literary Festival on Tuesday in response to a question from an audience member dismayed by the proliferation of giant solar farms covering several square miles of land.
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She said she can understand the opposition to solar farms — but also sympathizes with the farmers who profit from such projects because they provide a guaranteed, indexed income for decades.
“You can understand at this point, from a farmer’s point of view … £1,200 per hectare (per year), indexed, locked in for 20 years, what’s not to like?” she said.
“For everyone else, there’s a lot to dislike. That’s the problem with a solar farm. There will be one recipient.”
But Ms Batters said that in some cases farmers themselves have been forced off their farms to make way for solar farms if they are tenants of larger landowners.
She said: “We are seeing terrible examples of some landowners taking land back from tenants to put it into solar power.”
Ms Batters criticized how land ownership by wealthy investors, including private equity firms, was being allowed to expand – and called for action.
Referring to the debt-fueled private equity takeover of supermarket chain Morrisons, which the Daily Mail campaigned against, she said: “We saw what happened to Morrisons. In 10 years we may not have a British owned supermarket.
“Now private capital has moved into land. The land is for sale.
“I remember talking to (former chancellor) Kwasi Kwarteng. He said, you can’t be a free market one day and not the next.
“We are a country for sale. We sell land to people who don’t pay taxes here. It has to change.”
But she said the situation would continue “until we get a meaningful land use strategy” that places value on land used for traditional agriculture as well as new projects such as solar power and housing.
Ms Batters called on governments to help promote rooftop solar rather than on the ground and to allow wind turbines.
Large onshore wind farms were subject to a de facto ban until last year, although small-scale wind turbines are permitted.
Ms Batters said: “The Conservatives know how divisive it (solar) is. You’ve seen Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss say we’re going to stop installing solar on land and put it on rooftops.
“Farmers should be able to secure (electricity from) solar and wind turbines — rooftop solar. I really hope Labor (implements this)… with their plans for GB Energy.”
She said she had “real doubts” about GB Energy because the plans “are not cost-effective – but added: ‘They have to do it.’
There are now nearly 500 solar farms in the UK. The current largest, Shotwick Park, in Flintshire, North Wales, covers 250 acres.
But it would be dwarfed if the Botley West solar farm – planned for three sites in Oxfordshire totaling 2,471 acres, or almost four square miles, on land owned by Blenheim Palace – was given planning permission.
Another 2,500 acre solar farm is proposed on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border.
Ms Batters’ concerns about land ownership were echoed by economist Dieter Helm, who was on the same panel.
He said: “The issue of land ownership is really serious. You will have 500 people owning quite a lot of Scotland. The fact that many of them are outside the UK is really quite serious.
“(As a country) we live above our means, we don’t save. We have sold off most of the family silver and are living beyond our means. We are in the middle of another sell-off of British industry.”