Food vs. Power: Who Decides What Nebraska Farmland Becomes?
In Lancaster County, a 2,400-acre solar proposal has become a stress test for zoning, property rights, and the future of working land.
LANCASTER COUNTY, NE — Across the rolling corn and hay fields east of Hallam, yellow survey stakes now mark a different kind of harvest. The Panama Energy Center, proposed by NextEra Energy Resources, won county approval in January; clearing the way for what could become Nebraska’s largest solar project. Farmers and rural neighbors say they’re fighting not just a project, but a precedent: whether prime farmland can be steadily converted to power production under rules they argue were never meant for this scale.
Lancaster County opened the door to utility-scale solar in 2020, when “Large Solar Facility” was added as a use allowed by special permit in agricultural (AG) zones. That authority lives in Article 13.051 of the county zoning code and traces back to Resolution R-20-0037, adopted July 14, 2020.
By late 2024, that framework was put to a real-world test. On December 18, 2024, the Lincoln-Lancaster Planning Commission recommended approval of a large solar site east of Hallam; even some yes votes voiced discomfort about “giving up arable, valuable land.”
The project at the center of it all
Panama Energy Center (NextEra Energy Resources) is proposed across ~2,442 acres in southern Lancaster County, with up to 304 MW of panels and a 120-MW/4-hour battery—sited mostly on current cropland. A county staff report confirms those figures and notes NPPD would take the project’s output via the Olive Creek substation.
After a marathon public hearing on January 14, 2025, the County Board voted unanimously (5-0) on January 21 to approve the special permit—while tacking on additional setbacks for non-participating homes. Opponents appealed to district court in February.
Bottom line: The county’s 2020 rules enabled large solar by permit. In 2024–25, officials used that tool for a multi-thousand-acre project, over farmer and neighbor objections, and that approval is now in court.
This isn’t the county’s first solar fight. In 2021–2023, the Salt Creek Solar project (Ranger Power) won approval and then faced a neighbor lawsuit—an early signal that Lancaster’s special-permit pathway would be litigated parcel by parcel.
New rules for batteries (2025)
In July–August 2025, Lancaster County moved to explicitly allow battery energy storage systems (BESS) by special permit in the AG district, adding definitions, noise limits, emergency plans, and screening requirements. The Planning Commission recommended approval on July 23, and the County Board advanced the change on Aug. 19. Practically, it integrates large batteries with transmission, substations, and solar/wind projects.
Food security, land use, and local costs
The footprint isn’t marginal land; it’s productive ground. Producers argue that scattering multi-mile industrial arrays across prime soils chips away at both local food capacity and rural continuity—and that neighbors who never signed leases shoulder the visual, drainage, and road-use impacts.
Opposition has focused on the loss of prime cropland, proximity to homes, and the permanence of land-cover conversion over a project life that can exceed 30 years. Those concerns came through in public testimony and media coverage, including at the December 2024 and January 2025 hearings. (One planning commissioner said it “disturbs me to give up arable, valuable land.”)
A key tension is whether county-level “solar-friendly” policy—explicit in the 2050 Comprehensive Plan and referenced in staff analyses—prioritizes power over production when sites are sited on irrigated, high-yield ground.
Developer’s case (to be fair): NextEra points to construction jobs, long-term tax receipts, and emissions-free generation, portraying the project as compatible with agriculture and designed with setbacks, vegetative screening, and conditions negotiated through the permit.
Funding & regulatory headwinds for solar growth
The policy tailwinds of 2022–2024 have shifted. On August 7, 2025, the EPA terminated the $7 billion “Solar for All”program, canceling awards to 60 recipients nationwide—including $62.4 million that Nebraska’s Center for Rural Affairs planned to use for community and rooftop solar in rural and tribal communities. Legal fights are likely, but recipients say work is already halted.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (signed July 4, 2025) modifies/accelerates the wind-down of clean-energy credits. Multiple legal analyses agree that the technology-neutral ITC/PTC (Sections 48E/45Y) end for wind and solar placed in service after Dec. 31, 2027, with a “commence construction” safe harbor through July 4, 2026. Translation: developers are incentivized to start sooner and finish by 2027 to capture full credits. Projects that miss those windows face thinner margins, higher power-price needs, or re-scoping.
The Panama Energy Center’s own filings anticipated Phase 1 construction in 2025. If that schedule holds, it fits under the “commence construction” safe harbor; if delays stack up (e.g., litigation, supply chain, interconnection), the economics could tighten—possibly affecting scale, timing, or contract terms.
What does that mean locally? Solar for All targeted distributed/community projects more than utility-scale fields like Hallam. Still, the cancellation—and months of federal grant freezes earlier this year—tighten the broader financing environment and may slow feeder projects that build social license for solar in Nebraska. Reuters and the AP report the program’s demise came alongside broader clean-energy rollbacks.
Separately, Lancaster’s BESS text amendment could spur proposals for stand-alone battery yards (or paired with solar) in ag zones, raising new questions about safety buffers, emergency response, and end-of-life obligations—themes already surfacing in other states’ BESS laws.
Transmission lines, eminent domain—and why folks conflate them
Many landowners say “solar” and “taking” in the same breath. Legally, they’re different. Leases for panel arrays are voluntary—but transmission lines that connect big loads and resources can be routed by public power utilities with eminent domain, a power Nebraska retains as a public-power state. The distinction blurs when a line appears to serve a single industrial customer or a specific project.
In June–July 2025, news outlets documented NPPD’s use of eminent domain to secure slivers of farmland for a new line tied to a bitcoin mining facility, prompting open criticism from landowners and energy economists who questioned the public-interest test. NPPD says eminent domain is used only as a last resort.
Nebraska law and the Power Review Board orientation materials underscore that eminent domain for needed transmission remains part of the toolkit—one reason opposition to large energy infrastructure often spills over into solar hearings, where neighbors fear their county road will be next.
Some residents describe pressure to sign long leases at below-market rates or fears that transmission easements will devalue nearby ground. Public records confirm contested negotiations and, in transmission cases, eminent domain authority. But on the solar side, county staff emphasized participating landowners are voluntary, and courts will now test whether the County Board’s permit decision followed the law. (The plaintiffs’ appeal is pending in district court.)
Bottom line, even if your ground isn’t leased for panels, you may still face survey crews, pole siting, and easement pressure if a new substation or high-voltage corridor is proposed nearby. That reality is driving coalition-building across counties.
How the community is responding
Packed hearings & appeals. Hallam drew a six-hour hearing and immediate litigation. Groups like “Stop Panama Energy Center” are organizing neighbors, while attorneys active in prior cases are again on the captions.
County-by-county guardrails. Nearby counties (e.g., Gage) have adopted stricter solar setbacks and moratoria, signaling a regional pivot to tighter siting on prime soils.
Policy reframing. With Solar for All canceled and BESS rules advancing, local boards are re-weighing who benefits, who bears costs, and what “ag use” means when energy becomes a primary output.
How to keep it fair—for food producers and neighbors
If Lancaster County wants both energy development and food security, several ideas surfaced repeatedly in hearings, staff reports, and neighboring-county rules:
Prime-soil protection: steer large arrays off the highest-value irrigated acres; require soil restoration plans and enforceable decommissioning bonds (Lancaster’s code already mandates decommissioning plans; the Panama filing lists salvage values and bond triggers).
Bigger buffers & screening: extend setbacks from non-participating homes and require vegetative screening (the county raised setbacks in January; new BESS rules add noise and emergency-plan guardrails).
Transparency on power flows: Don’t hide the grid ball. Any large solar permit should disclose downstream transmission upgrades and who pays. Disclose who buys the energy, where it interconnects, and how much local tax or PILOT revenue arrives, to weigh community benefits vs. land-use trade-offs. (Local reports estimated the Panama project could deliver tens of millions over decades; figures vary by final build-out.) Make neighbor protections real. Standardize drainage plans, road maintenance bonds, decommissioning funds, and view-shed buffers—with enforcement teeth and third-party oversight.
Transmission routing discipline: require robust ag-impact minimization for new lines, prioritize co-location with existing corridors, and treat eminent domain as an absolute last resort, not a default.
Keep agriculture in agriculture. If counties allow energy in ag zones, require agrivoltaics pilots (grazing, pollinator habitat that doesn’t displace cropping) and acre-for-acre conservation offsets when prime soils are covered. Or better yet, require rezoning and don’t make it an acceptable Ag use. This would require more hurdles and more community input.
The stakes
Nebraska’s public-power DNA means communities can—and should—decide how much farmland becomes power land, under what standards, and with which protections. Farmers here aren’t anti-electricity. They’re anti-losing the land that feeds us without a transparent, farmer-first test of necessity, scale, and place. On that question—who decides what Nebraska farmland becomes—Hallam is the line in the loam.