The Italian government has issued a new decree to completely ban solar from agricultural land. The new provisions will not apply to projects currently undergoing the approval process and the aim of the decree is to “avoid desertification” of Italian agricultural land.
“We wanted to regulate the use of photovoltaic panels, and we believe that the land serves to produce and energy production must be compatible with agricultural production,” said Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida.
Lollobrigida said that solar plants cannot be installed in agricultural areas.
“There are very advantageous tax provisions for agricultural entrepreneurs and agricultural land,” he stated. “However, if you want to deploy photovoltaic panels on the ground, you are changing the intended use of the same and therefore we do not believe that this type of practice should continue,” Lollobrigida said, noting that the new provisions will not be applied to agrivoltaic facilities.
The government said it will still be possible to continue producing energy in quarries, mines, areas under concession to the state railway, areas under concession to airport concessionaires, areas protecting the motorway strip, and areas inside industrial plants, among others.
Lollobrigida said that the government will safeguard all projects in the process of approval.
“For us, legal certainty applies and therefore the rules are valid for what will happen and not for what has already happened or on which companies have legitimately entrusted their funds or investments,” he said.
The new provisions have already generated criticism from “environmentalists”.
Meanwhile in Labour-controlled Britain
Ed Milliband has given the green light for 30, 000 acres of solar panels on PRIME LINCOLNSHIRE Farmland. This will affect UK food supplies. Most of our UK vegetables come from Lincs. Photo of the largest solar panel farm in the world in India 14,000 acres, just for perspective pic.twitter.com/r7eeam6Aqr
— Bella Harvey (@digmoredeeper) July 17, 2024