Max Zimmerman talks about his farm and land Friday in Clark County. Staff photo by Andrew Harp
CLARK COUNTY — Jeff Bayes has known farming his entire life. In fact, it's his dream.
He grew up on his family farm in Clark County, and 40 years ago, he bought his own farm down the road from his parents. Within those 40 years, he said he has farmed many different crops including corn, beans, wheat, hay, pumpkins and fish.
"Ever since I was a little boy, this is what I wanted to do," Bayes said.
Now, he's thinking of slowing down, but not retiring, and is planning for the future to ensure the land stays with his family.
"We're all trying to keep our farms," Bayes said.
A handful of years ago, Bayes, along with several other families in the region, were approached by Florida-based company BrightNight to lease their land for a solar panel farm. Bayes agreed to lease about 116 acres of his land for the solar farm.
"We're just looking at this as this is a different crop to raise," Bayes said.
Bayes is one of several families in the North Clark County area leasing their lands for these solar farms. However, not a single panel has entered the ground.
Since October, after a permit submitted by BrightNight was denied by the Clark County Board of Zoning Appeals, residents who live adjacent and near the potential solar farms have voiced their concerns at county meetings.
Max Zimmerman, who signed with BrightNight and Orion Renewable Energy Group to lease a total of 500 to 600 acres for solar farms around three years ago, said his farm has been in the family for more than 100 years.
"You never have a day off. There's always something to do," Zimmerman said about farming.
His father, who died in January, was constantly farming, and was always trying new and innovative farming methods and crops, including tobacco and no-till farming. He said his father approved of the solar farm lease agreement.
At first, Zimmerman said he began receiving literature in the mail about solar companies wanting to his lease his land, which went in the trash. He remembers representatives from the companies then came to his Jeffersonville office to talk about it.
"When they first knocked on my door ... I laughed at them," he said.
However, after doing his research and talking with the companies, lawyers, researchers at Purdue University, farm managers and attending seminars, he found that the project was something he wanted to take part in. He will still have acreage available for farmers to lease out and use for crops, which he has been doing for years.
After Julie Skeens' father died unexpectedly in 1998, she and her sister more or less split his more than 600-acre farm that he purchased and had been growing since 1964.
Since then, she has been leasing the land to other farmers, although she said some agreements in the past have gone sour.
Skeens said she loves living out in Clark County on her property and wants to continue to hold on to it into the future.
"It's a privilege and a burden," Skeens said.
Zimmerman, Bayes and Skeens said the number of farmers in the county have declined, and the only way to be a successful farmer in this environment of rising costs of property taxes, insurance and equipment, is to scale as much as possible. Full-time farmers with a relatively small operation are just not able to survive solely with the income from the farm.
"It's all about scale," Zimmerman said.
Skeens said that at this point, after being in debt for several years, they're now at a point where they're just breaking even in their farming operations. That could change if expenses increase and/or product decreases in price.
"It's pretty much a break-even proposition," Skeens said.
Solar farms would potentially provide a steady, more stable income for the property owners. Weather isn't as much of a factor in terms of producing the energy/product compared to farming crops.
Zimmerman, Bayes and Skeens said it took them months to think about signing the leases with BrightNight.
Bayes and Skeens said they have had previous agreements with leasers that have ended in them getting shortchanged, so they wanted to make sure the BrightNight lease was fair.
Skeens didn't sign the lease until about two months ago. She said she was skeptical at first since she didn't want to work with a corporation, but changed her mind after realizing the company has similar values to her.
"I wanted to be very thorough," Skeens said.
Skeens, who considers herself environmentally conscious, also said that she was impressed with the information she was given that showed how much carbon would be saved with the solar panels.
Bayes said "input" costs like fertilizer, seeds and chemicals have increased dramatically. The price of the grain that they sell has been good. However, this year, the price has dropped, meaning there's the potential that they could come up short once everything is sold.
He said when a farmer comes up short and they still have bills to pay, they need to either sell their land, get a loan or maybe even open a third mortgage.
Bayes said when the farm runs into issues like this, he has a hard time sleeping, since he's up at night thinking about how he's going to be able to pay for everything.
With Bayes' lease, his solar farm will be behind his house on a parcel surrounded by tree lines. He doesn't want to live close to them either, since residents have criticized the setbacks of the solar farms from their own property.
"We love seeing the green fields too. I love it. But these people have no idea what it costs to make that field green," Bayes said.
Bayes said his perception of the community around him has changed since the zoning meeting in October.
"We never talked to anybody about what we're doing with our farm. It's our farm. We make the decision on what we raise," Bayes said.
There's also a resting element in the solar panel project as well. After years of using chemicals on the farm ground, it might not be as productive or fertile as it once was. The ground can then rest over the course of the 30+ year agreements, and if whoever owns it decides at the end of the agreement that they want to farm it again, the land will have rested and be of higher quality soil.
At the most recent Clark County Plan Commission meeting, the commission worked to decide on the solar farm regulations in the county's new Unified Development Ordinance. After more than 30 people spoke about the solar farms, for and against, the commission changed the originally proposed 250-foot setback from the solar farm property to the edge of a non-participating residential dwelling to 650 feet.
The three landowners said that the 650-foot setbacks are not fair for them or the developer and they would like to see the IDO convert back to a setback of 250 feet, which is the state recommendation.
A setback of 650 feet would result in 30-acre buffer around a home. A 250-foot setback would result in a 4.5-acre buffer area. Residents have advocated for a 1,000-foot setback.
"I should be able to do what I like with my property within reason," Skeens said.
The three landowners said they are convinced that there are no chemicals that would "leech" from the panels, which is a concern of the residents, and that if there were, they would never have signed the agreements in the first place.
Skeens said others ought to be more concerned with modern farming practices including the use of carcinogenic chemicals instead of solar panels.
"I would feel much more comfortable having my family surrounded with solar panels, than Roundup," Skeens said.
Bayes said he feels that in 30 years, most of the farm ground will either be solar farms or housing subdivisions.
He said if farmland is being auctioned, the highest bid usually goes to those creating housing developments, and local farmers usually can't compete with this.
Zimmerman and Bayes said they feel like those advocating against the solar farms would have their concerns dispelled if they were to talk about the plans together.
"If a person is in opposition of this and will actually sit down and talk to us about it," Bayes said. "There's nothing that can't be ironed out or solved."
The Clark County Commissioners will review and approve the UDO at a future meeting.
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