JASPER COUNTY, INDIANA, April 27 (Reuters) - Dave

Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of

yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm

was: I warned them this would happen.

About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are

covered in solar panels and related machinery - land that in

April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one

of the largest solar developments in the Midwest.

On that blustery spring afternoon in 2022, Duttlinger said,

his phone rang with questions from frustrated neighbors: Why is

dust from your farm inside my truck? Inside my house? Who should

I call to clean it up?

According to Duttlinger's solar lease, reviewed by Reuters,

Dunns Bridge said it would use "commercially reasonable efforts

to minimize any damage to and disturbance of growing crops and

crop land caused by its construction activities" outside the

project site and "not remove topsoil" from the property itself.

Still, sub-contractors graded Duttlinger's fields to assist the

building of roads and installation of posts and panels, he said,

despite his warnings that it could make the land more vulnerable

to erosion.

Crews reshaped the landscape, spreading fine sand across

large stretches of rich topsoil, Duttlinger said. When Reuters

visited his farm last year and this spring, much of the land

beneath the panels was covered in yellow-brown sand, where no

plants grew.

"I'll never be able to grow anything on that field again,"

the farmer said. About one-third of his approximately 1,200-acre

farm - where his family grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa for

cattle - has been leased.

The Dunns Bridge Solar project is a subsidiary of NextEra

Energy Resources LLC, the world's largest generator of renewable

energy from wind and solar. Duttlinger said when he approached

NextEra about the damage to his land, the company said it would

review any remedial work needed at the end of its contract in

2073, as per the terms of the agreement.

NextEra declined to comment on the matter or on what future

commitments it made to Duttlinger, and Reuters could not

independently confirm them. Project developer Orion Renewable

Energy Group LLC directed questions to NextEra.

The solar industry is pushing into the U.S. Midwest, drawn

by cheaper land rents, access to electric transmission, and a

wealth of federal and state incentives. The region also has what

solar needs: wide-open fields.

A renewable energy boom risks damaging some of America's

richest soils in key farming states like Indiana, according to a

Reuters analysis of federal, state and local data; hundreds of

pages of court records; and interviews with more than 100 energy

and soil scientists, agricultural economists, farmers and

farmland owners, and local, state and federal lawmakers.

Some of Duttlinger's farm, including parts now covered in

solar panels, is on land classified by the U.S. Department of

Agriculture (USDA) as the most productive for growing crops,

according to a Reuters analysis.

For landowners like Duttlinger, the promise of profits is

appealing. Solar leases in Indiana and surrounding states can

offer $900 to $1,500 an acre per year in land rents, with annual

rate increases, according to a Reuters review of solar leases

and interviews with four solar project developers. In

comparison, farmland rent in top corn and soybean producers

Indiana, Illinois and Iowa averaged about $251 per acre in 2023,

USDA data shows.

Farmland Partners Inc ( FPI ), a publicly traded farmland real

estate investment trust (REIT) has leased about 9,000 acres

nationwide to solar firms. Much of that ground is highly

productive, said Executive Chairman Paul Pittman.

"Do I think it's the best use of that land? Probably not.

But our investors would kill us if we didn't pursue this," he

said.

Some renewable energy developers said not all leases become

solar projects. Some are designing their sites to make it

possible to grow crops between panels, while others, like Doral

Renewables LLC, said they use livestock to graze around the

panels as part of their land management. Developers also argue

that in the Midwest, where more than one-third of the U.S. corn

crop is used for ethanol production, solar energy is key for

powering future electric vehicles.

Some agricultural economists and agronomists counter that

taking even small amounts of the best cropland out of production

for solar development and damaging valuable topsoil impacts

future crop potential in the United States.

Common solar farm construction practices, including clearing

and grading large sections of land, also can lead to significant

erosion and major runoff of sediment into waterways without

proper remediation, according to the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency and the Justice Department.

Solar development comes amid increasing competition for

land: In 2023, there were 76.2 million - or nearly 8% - fewer

acres in farms than in 1997, USDA data shows, as farmland is

converted for residential, commercial and industrial use.

In response to Reuters' findings, USDA said that urban

sprawl and development are currently bigger contributors to

farmland loss than solar, citing reports from the Department of

Energy and agency-funded research.

BUILDING ON PRIME CROPLAND

No one knows how much cropland nationwide is currently under

solar panels or leased for possible future development. Land

deals are typically private transactions. Scientists at the

United States Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of

Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been

compiling a database of existing solar facilities across the

country. While that project is incomplete and ongoing, Reuters

found that around 0.02% of all cropland in the continental U.S.

intersected in some way with large-scale, ground-based solar

panel sites they had identified as of 2021.

The total power capacity of the solar operations tracked in

the data set represents over 60 gigawatts of electric power

capacity. In the following two years, solar capacity has nearly

tripled, according to a Dec. 2023 report from the Solar Energy

Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie.

To better understand future land-use patterns, Reuters

analyzed federal government data to identify cropland that USDA

classified as prime, unique, or of local or statewide

importance. Reuters also reviewed more than 2,000 pages of

solar-related documents filed at local county recorders' offices

in a small sample of four Midwestern counties - Pulaski, Starke

and Jasper counties in Indiana, and Columbia County in

Wisconsin.

The counties, representing an area of land slightly bigger

than the state of Delaware, are where some of the nation's

largest projects are being developed or built. The sample is not

necessarily representative of the broader United States but

gives an idea of the potential impact of solar projects in

farm-heavy counties.

Reuters found the percentage of these counties' most

productive cropland secured by solar and energy companies as of

end of 2022 was as follows: 12% in Pulaski, 9% in Starke, 4% in

Jasper and 5% in Columbia.

Jerry Hatfield, former director of USDA Agricultural

Research Service's National Laboratory for Agriculture and the

Environment, said Reuters' findings in the four counties are

"concerning."

"It's not the number of acres converting to solar," he said.

"It's the quality of the land coming out of production, and what

that means for local economies, state economies and the

country's future abilities for crop production."

More than a dozen agronomists, as well as renewable energy

researchers and other experts consulted by Reuters, said the

approach to measuring solar's impact was fair. The news agency

also shared its findings with six solar developers and energy

firms working in these counties. Three said Reuters' sample size

was too small, and the range of findings too wide, to be a fair

portrayal of industry siting and construction practices.

By 2050, to meet the Biden Administration's decarbonization

targets, the U.S. will need up to 1,570 gigawatts of electric

energy capacity from solar.

While the land needed for ground-based solar development to

achieve this goal won't be even by state, it is not expected to

exceed 5% of any state's land area, except the smallest state of

Rhode Island, where it could reach 6.5%, by 2050, according to

the Energy Department's Solar Futures Study, published in 2021.

Researchers at American Farmland Trust, a non-profit

farmland protection organization which champions what it calls

Smart Solar, forecast last year that 83% of new solar energy

development in the U.S. will be on farm and ranchland, unless

current government policies changed. Nearly half would be on the

nation's best land for producing food, fiber, and other crops,

they warned.

FUEL DEBATE

Five renewable developers and solar energy firms interviewed

by Reuters counter that the industry's use of farmland is too

small to impact domestic food production overall and should be

balanced with the need to decarbonize the U.S. energy market in

the face of climate change.

Doral Renewables, the developer behind the $1.5 billion

Mammoth Solar project in Pulaski and Starke counties, does not

consider corn or soybean yields in its siting decisions.

Instead, the company looks at the land's topography, zoning

and closeness to an electrical grid or substation - and tries to

avoid wooded areas, ditches and environmentally sensitive areas,

said Nick Cohen, Doral's president and CEO.

Shifting corn acres for solar? "I don't see it as replacing

something that is vital to our society," Cohen said. Solar can

make farmland "more productive from an economic perspective," he

added.

Indiana farmer Norm Welker says he got a better deal leasing

60% of his farmland to Mammoth than he would have growing corn,

with prices dipping to three-year lows this year.

"We've got mounds of corn, we're below the cost of

production, and right now, if you're renting land to grow corn -

you're losing money," Welker said. "This way, my economic

circumstances are very good."