Through the window of his combine, Wayne Greier watches his teenage son drive a tractor across an empty field, towing a plow into position for another uncertain season of spring planting. Greier, a sixth-generation farmer in Canfield, Ohio, said local officials blocked a solar project on his land in 2023 under an Ohio law that allows counties to halt wind and solar construction they consider “restricted,” and he has been trying to make sense of the fallout.
Greier said the lease payments he had expected from the deal—about $540,000 per year—would have offered financial stability while he battled heavy medical debt tied to a long fight with COVID and related complications. He said the project “was our saving grace” and added that it was “It wasn’t a scary picture that everybody likes to paint about solar and the loss of farmland.”
The dispute played out in public meetings, Greier said, and he described how the conflict affected his family. He said he and his family were ostracized as the debate unfolded, and he said his mental health “plummeted.” He also said the harm to him was personal: “I was the one that was going to lose the sixth-generation farm. I was the one that couldn’t provide for my family.”
His case reflects a broader pattern that developers and residents say is becoming more common: local governments restricting renewable energy projects even as federal incentives and deadlines move forward. Greier said he has since shifted from trying to secure his own deal to helping other landowners navigate similar battles, including through his role with the Renewable Energy Farmers of America.
Greier’s advocacy now extends to surrounding communities and political processes. In Richland County, Ohio—about 100 miles from his home—advocates reached a referendum on the ballot this May to reverse the county’s ban on wind and solar projects. Morgan Carroll, a lifelong resident who is not a farmer or landowner, said she has been working since last summer to build support, describing the ban as taking decisions away from residents and saying the projects could bring jobs and tax revenue. She said she wants her children to have opportunities without moving away, saying: “I want them to be in a county that can provide jobs, can provide a good school for them,” and “I don’t want to have to move.”
In other parts of the region, residents who oppose solar development have pressed officials to slow or pause projects. In February, Dearborn County, Indiana, officials paused solar development for a year after resident concerns about solar panels near homes and potential environmental impacts from panel materials. Bobby Rauen, who lives near a proposed 1,200-acre (486-hectare) solar project, said he and other residents petitioned for the pause and hoped officials would use the time to create better protections for nearby residents. He also said he worried about whether the farmland would return to production if panels were removed.
Researchers and policy experts say the growth of local restrictions is increasingly shaping how renewable energy projects move forward. Juniper Katz, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts who focuses on environmental policy, said many communities may support decarbonization in theory, but she said the “trick” is balancing local input when the process creates “so many veto points that nothing can get done.” Katz said it is “not easy to do” this kind of balancing.
That local veto power can clash with national timelines that are changing for utility-scale solar. Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration moved up deadlines for utility-scale solar projects to qualify for tax incentives after passage of a tax package last July. Under the updated timeline, projects must be in service by the end of 2027 to qualify.
Federal and state policy shifts can still collide with county ordinances. In Kentucky, Lita Leavell and her husband, Joe, who operate a 1,000-acre (405-hectare) cattle farm in Lancaster, said they had hoped to host a utility-scale solar project on about half their land that they estimated would produce around $60,000 a year. She said a Garrard County ordinance passed in 2023 restricted solar development and that the energy company she was working with ended the project.
Leavell said county leaders told residents during an August 2025 meeting that part of the ordinance’s rationale was the federal government’s opposition to solar energy and the Trump administration’s desire to stop utility-scale projects on farmland. She and a group of six other landowners are suing to overturn the ordinance, and she said she was “perplexed” by why the lack of federal support should affect her ability to pursue a project on her own land, adding: “The thing I guess that perplexed me so much is that there’s so many more worse things that could be next to you.”
Greier said advocates in Richland County found that residents were more receptive when solar disputes were framed as property-rights issues. Greier said he also speaks about property rights in his arguments, saying his farm is his retirement plan and that he should have the right to use it to support his family. He said: “There’s families that are relying on this and looking for this,” and added that “it’s been taken away, this opportunity.”