Efforts to turn food producing land into electricity producing land continue unabated in the Pacific Northwest.

A new project comes with a welcome twist.

Last week, our colleagues at The Oregonian reported that Oregon’s Energy Facility Siting Council has approved a massive solar energy “farm” on over 10,000 acres 15 miles south of Boardman, in Morrow County.

According to council documents, the Sunstone Solar Project is being developed by a subsidiary of Pine Gate Renewables LLC, of Asheville, N.C. The 1,200 megawatt facility will be built on 9,442 acres zoned for exclusive farm use, within a total area of 10,960 acres.

It will be built in six phases, each taking 21 months to complete. Construction could begin in April 2026. The company envisions starting two phases each year, meaning the project could be completed in early 2030.

The land is privately owned, and the site will be leased from four families currently farming in the region. It’s used mostly for dryland production of wheat. None of the land is irrigated.

When completed, the facility will feature nearly 4 million solar panels and associated batteries, transformers, transmission lines and 58 miles of perimeter fencing. It will be the largest solar energy facility in Oregon.

Like many in agriculture, we’ve cast a wary eye on the rush to turn productive farmland into massive electrical generation facilities.

The farm families that own the land are willing landlords. The company’s financial analysis says that the lease payments will more than offset the farms’ lost crop revenue. It’s a good deal for them, and they would be foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity.

But, the loss of their production impacts others.

Solar facilities and wind turbines are for all practical purposes permanent. They take farmland out of production and weaken the local production infrastructure.

To the last point the developers are offering a novel concession. They have agreed to put $11 million into a special mitigation fund that will be managed by stakeholders. That amount is meant to correspond to the estimated revenue fuel dealers, input vendors, the local grain co-op and other retailers would have realized from the site over the project’s 40-year lifespan.

According to plan documents, monies in the fund would be spent over 10 years on projects that benefit dryland wheat farmers, the Morrow County Grain Growers cooperative and the dryland wheat economy.

That takes the edge off a bit, and is certainly a welcome addition to this type of project. The effort is laudable. We hope other developers step up to mitigate impacts to the local farm economy.

Nonetheless, we remain reticent.

Farmland is a finite resource. Once paved over or contaminated, it can’t be recovered. It should be left in place and protected.

Preserving farmland must be a priority.

Farmland is too often seen as empty space awaiting development. But farmland is not empty. It provides the food that sustains us and the fiber that clothes us.

It is a vital strategic resource, and should be treated as such.