Farmers are being booted off their land in a drive for more solar power, outgoing union chief warns

The head of Britain's farming union yesterday spoke out against large-scale solar farms, declaring 'there's a huge amount not to like'.

But Minette Batters warned they will continue to be built while her members faced uncertainty about the future of dairy and arable farming - and while wealthy investors are free to buy up large chunks of the countryside.

Ms Batters, outgoing president of the National Farmers' Union, also highlighted 'horrific examples' where tenant farmers are being booted off land for huge solar schemes so the landowner can make more money.

She said such changes of land use will continue while investors including overseas financiers and private equity firms are able to buy up huge chunks of the rural landscape unchecked, warning: 'The country is up for sale'.

Ms Batters called for the next government to prioritise a new land strategy, so protections are given to traditional farming and its economic value is properly-acknowledged.

Minette Batters (pictured in 2020) yesterday spoke out against large-scale solar farms, declaring 'there's a huge amount not to like'

Ms Batters warned that solar farms will continue to be built while her members faced uncertainty about the future of dairy and arable farming (pictured: A proposed 1,400-acre site for a solar farm in Chickerell, Dorset) 

She added: 'We are a country up for sale. We are selling off land to people who don't pay their taxes here. It does have 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 horrified about the proliferation of giant solar farms covering several square miles of land.

Read More

Jeremy Clarkson calls for teenagers to work on farms instead of doing 'idiotic' national service

She said she could understand opposition to solar farms - but also had sympathy for farmers cashing in on such projects because they provide a guaranteed, index-linked income for decades.

'You can understand at the moment, from a farmer's perspective... £1,200 a hectare (per year), index-linked, locked in for 20 years, what's not to like?' she said.

'For everybody else, there's a huge amount not to like. This is the trouble with a solar farm. There will be one beneficiary.'

But Ms Batters said that in some cases, farmers themselves have been forced to leave their farms to make way for solar farms if they are tenants of larger landowners.

She said: 'We are seeing horrific examples of some land owners taking land back from tenants to put into solar.'

Ms Batters criticised how land ownership by wealthy investors including private equity firms is being allowed to proliferate - and called for action.

Citing the debt-fuelled private equity takeover of supermarket chain Morrisons, which the Daily Mail campaigned against, she said: 'We saw what happened with Morrisons. We might not have a British-owned supermarket in 10 years.

'Now, private equity has moved into land. The country is up for sale.

'I remember having a conversation with (former Chancellor) Kwasi Kwarteng. He said, you can't be a free market one day and not the next.

'We are a country up for sale. We are selling off land to people who don't pay their taxes here. It does have to change.'

Ms Batters called for the next government to prioritise a new land strategy, so protections are given to traditional farming and its economic value is properly-acknowledged (pictured: The fields the solar farm is planned for at Strattons Farm, Kingsclere) 

Ms Batters said she could understand opposition to solar farms - but also had sympathy for farmers cashing in on such projects because they provide a guaranteed, index-linked income for decades (file image) 

But she said the situation will continue 'until we get a meaningful land use strategy' in which a value is given to land used for traditional farming as well as new developments such as solar and housing.

Ms Batters called for governments to help promote solar on rooftops rather than land and allow wind turbines.

Large-scale onshore wind farms were subject to a de facto ban until last year, although wind turbines are allowed on a small scale.

Ms Batters said: 'The Conservatives know how divisive this (solar) is. You saw Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss saying we're going to stop putting solar on land and put it on rooftops.

'Farmers ought to be able to provide (electricity from) solar and wind turbines - solar on rooftops. I really hope Labour (implements this)... with their plans for GB Energy.'

She said she had 'real doubts' about GB Energy because the plans 'are uncosted - but added: 'They need to do it.'

There are now nearly 500 solar farms around 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 totalling 2,471-acres, or nearly four square miles, on land owned by Blenheim Palace - is given planning consent.

Another 2,500 acre solar farm is proposed on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border.

Ms Batters' concern about land ownership was echoed by economist Dieter Helm, who was on the same panel.

He said: 'The question of land ownership is really serious. You are going to have 500 people owning quite a lot of Scotland. The fact a lot of them are out of the UK is really quite serious.

'(As a country) we live beyond our means, we do not save. We've sold off most of the family silver and live beyond our means. We are in the middle of another sell-off of British industry.'