08/16/2026
Tennessee has plenty of rooftops, warehouses, shopping centers, and acres upon acres of parking lots.
What we don’t have is an endless supply of farmland. 🌾
Once a good field is covered over, paved, or taken out of agricultural use, getting that land back is not simple. And every time we lose another piece of working ground, we lose a little more of the Tennessee that generations before us knew.
That doesn’t mean we have to be against new energy.
It means we ought to be smart about where we put it.
If solar panels can go over giant parking lots, on warehouse roofs, or on other already-developed spaces, why should productive farmland be the first place we sacrifice?
Imagine pulling into a shopping center and parking in the shade while solar panels above the cars generate electricity. That sounds like using land twice instead of taking a farm out of production.
Our fields grow food. They support families. They hold the barns, fence rows, cattle, hayfields, and open views that make rural Tennessee feel like rural Tennessee.
Parking lots already serve one purpose.
Let’s make them serve two.
Protect the farms. Protect the open land. Keep Tennessee looking like Tennessee. 🌾🚜🇺🇸
Would you rather see solar panels over parking lots than across Tennessee farmland?
