Loose Change

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about change lately.

In my day job, I’m an IT director over several teams that manage email and teleconferencing systems. Over the last couple years I’ve managed teams through some immense change initiatives. Altogether I’ve moved over 300,000 people to different email platforms, along with all the associated software.

So I get it. I’ve seen the fear of change firsthand for the last several years.

“I’m not using Google Docs. I’ve used Word for twenty years!”

“I hate this!”

“Why can’t we just stay the same?!”

I’ve heard it all, probably hundreds of variations of those kinds of quotes. What it comes down to is not that people don’t want to learn, don’t want to grow. When you press them they can’t really articulate any justifiable reasons why they’re so up-in-arms about changing something. What it comes down to, in my opinion, is that they don’t want to get outside of their comfort zone and admit that maybe the thing they’ve hung their hat on for the last umpteen years isn’t the best thing in the world.

In the last couple months since we’ve really dug into solar and created Helios, I’ve seen more of that fear of change firsthand. And while it’s understandable, that doesn’t mean it makes sense. Prime example…

Recently I sat in on a county planning commission meeting where they were discussing permits for large scale solar in the county. The discussion ranged far and wide, but what the opponents kept circling back to was that large solar farms would take “prime farmland” out of production.

Let me show you something…

This is “prime farmland” in the middle of a growing season.

…and so is this.

…and this, too.

Notice anything particularly odd about that prime farmland in the middle of a growing season?

If you guessed, “It’s not being farmed,” you win the prize!

Over thirty years ago my dad pioneered a lot of farmland conservation techniques. I’ll get a post up later on with some of the statewide awards that he won over the years. He was one of the first farmers to invest his land in Conservation Reserve Programs (CRP). Back in the ‘80s was kind of the start of farming’s next Industrial Revolution. Hybrid seeds, different fertilizers, different planting techniques, all came together to boost production through the roof. In order to stabilize both the national grain supply and also to stabilize prices the government created these programs that would pay farmers to… not farm.

All the photos above are some of the 330 acres of arable land at Helios. Only 100 acres of that land has been consistently farmed. The other 200+ acres have not been farmed in over two decades because it wasn’t necessary. The government paid my family to not grow anything on that land.

So circling back to the local county commissioner’s meeting… What’s reallllyyyy interesting to me is that this group spouted on and on about how a large solar farm would use up priceless prime farmland and it could never be used again. And then in literally the very next breath went on to reclassify entire stretches of the US-31 corridor (you know, prime farmland!!) for development. “At this intersection we can allow two gas stations and a commercial pad. Between this intersection and the next two we can classify subdivisions up to a half mile off the highway. blah blah blah”

I don’t get it. I just can’t wrap my head around how solar panels that create clean, green energy and are relatively easily to remove to return the land to a fully arable state (and which, by the way, would have soil-recovering cover crops growing under them for thirty-plus years) are somehow worse than yet another stretch of gas stations and McMansions that actually will take the land out of production forever.

If anyone actually understands this reasoning, please drop me a line and explain, because I sure can’t figure it out. Meanwhile I’ll be over here at Helios watching the sun give us electricity while the land recovers for the next few decades.