Solar farm schemes spark MPs’ fears over food security

Conservative MPs have raised fears that covering farmland with solar panels could imperil the UK’s food security, fuelling  concerns already heightened following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a House of Commons debate on Wednesday (9 March) about the planning of solar farms, backbench Tory MPs queued up to express opposition to the rash of such developments being brought forward in their constituencies.

The debate’s sponsor Brendan Clarke-Smith, Conservative MP for Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire, said the “threat to agricultural land” is the “crux of the problem” posed by the solar development.

“With the situation in Ukraine at the moment, we have to look to our wheat supplies, and we want to source more of our food locally.

“We need to grow more of our own food locally, not only to cut carbon emissions, but to mitigate wider problems such as the soaring price of wheat resulting from the situation in Ukraine, which is a particular concern at the moment.”

He said that while solar power is essential for a “secure supply of energy”, it is “important” to strike the “right” balance with food security.

Clarke-Smith told fellow MPs that consultants for developer Island Green Power, which has submitted plans for a 600-acre solar farm and battery plant in his constituency, claim the soil quality of the land they are proposing to build on is ‘moderate’.

But given that the site is currently used for crops that grow in higher quality soils, including potatoes, he said Bassetlaw council is carrying out its own analysis.

Clarke-Smith was backed up by former energy minister Sir John Hayes, Tory MP for South Holland in Lincolnshire, who said that it is “vital” that highest grade agricultural land is used for production.

“Recent events in particular have shown us that we need more security, including food security, but these solar farms are often sited on grade 1 or grade 2 agricultural land, which should be used for food production.”

He called on the government to make it “absolutely clear” that the government “will not tolerate” risks to the UK’s food security.

“We should populate industrial, commercial and domestic buildings with solar panels long before we consider putting them in fields, which are remote from demand and entail all the transmission costs I mentioned.”

Sir Edward Leigh, MP for Gainsborough, said the UK also has a responsibility to safeguard wider food security worldwide.

“Countries like Lebanon and Egypt are almost wholly reliant on Ukrainian wheat. That gives us even more responsibility to plan not just for our own food supplies, but for other parts of the world.”

George Freeman, junior business minister, said he shared MPs’ concerns about the use of good agricultural land and food security, “particularly in the light of the Ukraine situation”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked fears over food security because the latter is one of the world’s biggest exporters of food crops, including wheat.

Alan Whitehead, shadow energy minister, responded that it is a “fantasy” to expect that reaching the Climate Change Committee’s target of 40 GW of solar power by 2030 will be possible by “simply installing them in small numbers on roofs in cities and towns.”

The UK currently has around of 14GW of deployed solar capacity.

A “much more strategic and planned approach” to solar developments is required, he said: “It is not an option to have them nowhere at all.

“It is imperative that we have this amount of renewable energy across our country for the future. Be it offshore wind or onshore wind, city-based solar or field-based solar—all of those have to be considered as imperative for delivering our renewable power supplies. Solar happens to be the cheapest power available, and it is one of the quickest to introduce if we are thinking about a dash for renewables in the future.”

The debate preceded Thursday’s publication by Labour of its five-point plan for energy security.

The opposition called for the insulation of 19 million homes within a decade, a doubling of the UK’s onshore wind capacity to 30GW by 2030, increasing offshore wind capacity to at least 75GW by 2035, tripling solar power output by 2030 and support for wave power.