Here & Now

Facing Falling Prices, Farmers Search for a ‘Field of Beams’

Frederica Freyberg:
And this related news, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission has approved one of the largest solar projects in the country. Landowners in Iowa County are leasing their land to renewable energy companies Invenergy to place solar panels on their fields. “Here & Now” production assistant Will Kenneally reports from near Dodgeville.

Will Kenneally:
Whoever said Wisconsin’s weather is predictable? No one ever. But it may be more steady than the farm markets which for a while now, have been mostly cloudy.

Ken Wunderlin:
In 1980 we got $13.80 a hundred for our milk. And this last January, February, and last December, farmers were getting $13.80 for class 3 for their milk. So the price was basically about the same.

Will Kenneally:
And so Ken Wunderlin, like a growing number of farmers, sold his dairy herd in Iowa County last summer even though it was his life.

Ken Wunderlin:
Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep. Started right out of high school on my own and been doing it for near 50 years now.

Will Kenneally:
UW-Extension Ag Agent Gene Schriefer describes the market forces facing farmers.

Gene Schriefer:
Often we’d see high milk prices at times of low crop prices so the dairy farmers were thriving. The crop guys were having a little bit of a harder time. Or crops would be really high priced and milk would be low priced. But now you’ve got a pretty broad swath of the rural economic economy out here, as far as agriculture goes, all being hit at the same time. It’s just the commodities right now have taken a beating just because we’re so good at producing. So we’ve got to deal with this glut.

Will Kenneally:
Now some, like Ken Wunderlin, are turning to the sun.

Ken Wunderlin:
It’s just another form of ag production or crop production. We’re going to produce energy instead of corn.

Will Kenneally:
Turning to a field of beams to make a go of it, Wunderlin is one of more than a dozen landowners renting their land to the Invenergy Company to place solar panels in southwestern Wisconsin. The 350,000 acre project will be the largest in the Midwest, one of the largest in the U.S. and about the size of the nearby city of Dodgeville.

Daniel Litchfield:
We settled in Iowa County because it’s a good spot for solar development.

Will Kenneally:
Daniel Litchfield is Director of Renewable Development for Invenergy.

Daniel Litchfield:
We need flat, open land. There’s an area here we’ve been able to lease for our site that is very constructible for solar, flat and open. And then the community and the landowners being interested and willing to host it.

Will Kenneally:
Renewable energy advocates say this puts Wisconsin on the map.

Tyler Nuebner:
Wisconsin has lagged in renewable energy from some another states including neighboring states like Iowa and Minnesota. So this is a real opportunity to get us back in the race.

Will Kenneally:
Ken Wunderlin says it’ll be a relief to have a secure source of income.

Ken Wunderlin:
Agreed-upon rate. It is a much better price. More than two times as good as cropland would sell for. With cost of living increase into that rent every year. And so it just made sense to take the gamble out of farming.

Will Kenneally:
But not everyone’s onboard. Some local farmers are critics of the plan. They worry solar panel fields will change the landscape. That southwestern Wisconsin will stray from its traditional farming roots. Supporters say it will be long-term, but not forever.

Tyler Nuebner:
The great thing about that is when it’s time, when this project has reached its end of life, and it’s no longer economic or producing enough energy, you can pull that out and you’re back to farmland. It’s not a permanent structure. You’re not changing to a big commercial building. It is really temporary. It’s long-term. It’s 30 to 40 years. But it ultimately is temporary.

Will Kenneally:
Wunderlin says whether the land in the future is planted for crops or laid with panels, he just wants it to work for him and others like him.

Ken Wunderlin:
The way I see it, that the farmers can’t stay farming if they can’t make a production — or profit, I mean. And so it’s one way for — maybe we can, in the future make it so farming is profitable.

Will Kenneally:
Reporting from Iowa County, this is Will Kenneally.

Frederica Freyberg:
The Iowa County solar project is expected to be operational as early as next year.