“Bill Lanford’s mailbox for the past year has been filling up with offers and solicitations to lease part of his family farm. The offers don’t come from housing developers though.
Instead they come from alternative energy companies that are scrambling to secure suitable properties for solar farms.
“I’ve been approached a dozen times at least,” says Lanford, a University at Albany physics professor who lives on the farm that his dad raised cattle on.
“Most of them don’t know much about it,” he said of the developers who seem simply to want to lock up a lease on the property.
He eventually struck a deal with Eden Renewables, a Troy-based developer with a track record of building projects.
Lanford is experiencing the latest version of a long American tradition with a high-tech twist. Like the Sooners who raced to settle the best farmland in Oklahoma in the 1800s, and the 49ers who scrambled up the mountains of the Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush, builders of solar farms are racing to grab the best spots for their planned projects. “
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Karlin, Rick. Albany Times Union 7 May 2021.