With the world facing a global climate crisis, countries around the world are cutting carbon emissions and transitioning over to clean renewable energy resources.
The United States still produces nearly 80% of all energy from fossil fuels, while this needs to change, it presents American farmers an opportunity.
The numbers show that farmers in the US have been struggling for years, dating all the way back to 2013. Financial debt has caused many farmers to either sell off some of their equipment or pieces of their land, simply to try and make up for lost profits.
Both climate change and international trade wars have had a big impact on farms across the country. In 2019, the national farm debt ($416 billion) nearly reached the 1980 record levels of $431.6 billion, leading many farmers to file for bankruptcy, which saw a 20% increase last year.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture data, the average farm was $1.3 million in debt in 2017 and that number has risen by more than 8.5 percent since then.
The good news in all of this for farmers is that 80% of the energy still comes from the air polluting fossil fuel industry. A recent article by USA Today specifically looks at wind energy and how it can help farmers either dig out of debt or at least make enough to keep living on the land they love.
One such farmer is Tom Cunningham, with just three wind turbines on his farm, who said;
I would say the absence of financial stress has been a real game-changer for me. The turbines make up for the (crop) export issues we’ve been facing.
Wind turbine leases are generally between 30-40 years, which can give farmers peace of mind to know that even if the crop yields are down, they will have some steady income for many years. Many landowners can generate $3,000 to $7,000 annually from an area the size of a two-car garage. Wind turbines are large, but 95 percent of farmland can still be utilized for farming.
For farmers like Tom Cunningham, wind turbines gave him an alternative to relying solely on his farming to generate income. Farmers have to hope for good weather, no droughts or flooding to produce their crops, and even if they do generate crops, the international trade wars are a real dilemma facing the majority of farmers around the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SigbNZB-AX0
Before he had his wind turbines, Mr. Cunningham was what he called “functionally bankrupt,” operating many years with barely enough money to get by, and now;
This isn’t money that other people would think is very much, but it made an enormous difference to us.
For farmers who are unable to generate enough wind power or don’t have enough land, there are other forms of renewable energy. Solar power is making great strides, with bifacial panels and perovskite advances happening almost daily. The U.S. is going to increase its renewable energy production because they have so much capacity to do so if farmers can get on board, it will help them much more than any bailout.
