Committee backs resolution urging Congress to require solar leases to restore farmland to agriculture

Rodney Baker, representing Holden Conner and speaking for affected landowners in northeast Arkansas, urged the Senate Agriculture Committee to ask the state's congressional delegation to include protections in the farm bill ensuring that land placed under solar leases can be returned to agricultural production when leases end.

"We need something that shows the will of Congress that this land be able to be brought back into production when that time is over," Baker said, arguing that many east Arkansas tracts are prior-converted wetlands that retain an exemption from Clean Water Act jurisdiction so long as they remain in agricultural production. He warned that reclassification to commercial use could transfer oversight to the U.S. EPA and the Army Corps, potentially imposing restrictions that would make the land less productive and lower its value.

Baker described the leases as typically 30‑year terms and said technology and leasing practices are changing, noting emerging approaches such as vertical panels and intercropping between panels. He asked the committee to urge the congressional delegation to study the issue and adopt language in the farm bill to protect the ability to return leased land to production.

The committee moved the submitted resolution, allowed brief questions, and the chair called the resolution passed by voice vote. No roll-call tally was recorded during the meeting minutes.

The resolution asks Arkansas’s federal delegation to review farm‑bill language and consider statutory protections so farmland used for solar projects can revert to agricultural use and preserve prior‑converted wetland exemptions where applicable. Committee members did not include specific federal language at the meeting.