The following Letter to the Editor is from the October 2025 issue of The Lenawee Voice. Letters should be 300 words or fewer and may be emailed to [email protected]. If space is limited, preference will be given to local authors and local topics. Please include your town of residence and a phone number for verification.

Township boards biased against solar projects

I’ve gone to all of Deerfield and Blissfield Township’s Orsted public solar meetings and the RWE Clean Energy Palmyra Township meetings. I’ve noticed the bias in the boards against farmers trying to make a living. In none of these meetings have they addressed the disaster of what these farm tariffs have done to the farming community. Their biggest customer is China and China is now buying their farm commodities from Brazil leaving American farmers out, which makes up over 80% of their market. I hear these boards say it’s all about saving prime farm ground. They don’t want to look at a solar farm, but not one on these boards have noted that if farmers can’t sell their commodities at a profit, that makes their arguments moot. If you do a simple Google search you would see multiple stories about farmers going bankrupt because their costs far exceed their selling prices.

 Residential homeowners living in agricultural-zoned districts do not have the same rights as those living in residential zoned land. This is why most farmers are not coming to these board meetings. They know they are not being heard.

—­ Paul Wohlfarth, Ottawa Lake