We need to talk about solar

A couple of years ago, a friend from Northwestern Bulgaria shared her annoyance with solar installations taking over farmland. “Prime farmland,” she said, “and they’ve covered it with panels.”

“But shouldn’t that be forbidden?” I responded. “Farmland should be used for farming, not panels. Surely there must be some law saying this.”

Indeed, there is. Land in Bulgaria, as in other countries, I imagine, is divided into ten categories, from top to bottom quality. The first two categories are the best for growing crops. The bottom two — garbage.

The law states, or rather stated, that only land unfit for farming can be used to build solar installations. Changes made by the previous government last year changed this but they are being disputed by the President at the Constitutional Court so that’s on hold. Still, it is possible to re-categorise land previously used for farming in order to make the construction of solar on it legal. But apparently, you don’t even need that.

In October last year, the news broke that two high-ranking officials from the Bulgarian Agricultural Academy and the Institute for Soil Science had illegally re-categorised land to enable solar development on it. The news was brought to my attention by the inimitable Robert Bryce and my first reaction was one of surprise. Not that there were people doing this. I was surprised that they had got caught.

The two, I gather, got off on bail but that’s beside the point. The point is that there appears to be so much money to be made from solar that all other considerations take second place. Or tenth. And while in Bulgaria using prime farmland for solar is still illegal, so you need to bribe people to do it, elsewhere it is perfectly legal and actively encouraged by the government. Solar is taking over farmland — finite, food-producing farmland. Whatever could go wrong?