The British farmers swapping sheep for solar panels

Woolly flocks, bovine cattle and goldtipped barley have long- decorated England’s rural landscape. But now on those pleasant pastures sometimes sits a very different sight – glaring, bright blue solar panels.

Paying anything up to around £1,200 per acre each year, solar parks are taking pride of place on land previously home to sheep, cows and crops as cash-strapped farmers try to diversify their incomes in the wake of unpredictable markets.

More and more farmers are leasing their land to developers of the polycrystalline panels, trade unions say, and some even stand to make more from solar panels than sheep this year.

Mark Tory, 41, a farmer in Dorchester, said: “In 2022, the harvest was amazing. Prices were high and costs the year before were low. This year, it’s the complete reverse. Prices have fallen following a rise in input costs. We will make more on solar parks than farming.”

Inflation has driven up farmers’ running costs by 28.5pc, according to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Farming labour is also in short supply and supermarkets are continuing to squeeze prices so cost-conscious shoppers spend more.

Mr Tory’s farm was one of the first to host solar panels in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, having begun to lease his land to them back in 2014. While 25 acres are now taken up by solar panels, the remaining 50 are still farmed.

Less than 1pc of England’s farmland is currently taken up by solar panels, but there is a worry that this percentage will continue to grow and eat into valuable production space.

Tom Bradshaw, deputy president of the National Farmers Union, said solar parks developed at scale on farmland can have a very sizeable impact at a local level – and could lead to a greater reliance nationwide on produce from abroad.

He added: “Farmers are often looking at diversification because food production alone is no longer viable, which seems completely perverse with 70m people on an island. They will find other things to do with their land at the expense of the country. But we need to be taking more responsibility for our food production. We don’t want to rely on other countries.”