Opinion: Using fallowed ag land for solar farms opens training, job opportunities for local workers
In all the talk about the San Joaquin Valley’s groundwater restrictions and resulting loss of agriculture, it’s important to consider how transitioning from farming operations to clean-energy production creates construction job opportunities for thousands of area workers. The mandate to meet state clean energy goals by 2045 — and the loss of farmland due to groundwater restrictions under the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act — have opened the door to a vast solar resource that can keep land economically productive and local people employed in good jobs for the long term. But current law makes these land transitions cumbersome and complicated, hampering the region’s potential to become a solar energy hub. If corrected, the switch from unusable farmland to low-water-use, clean energy projects would generate billions in tax revenue and labor income while lowering household electric bills and cleaning up our air.
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