An 80-year-old farmer in Clearcreek Township has turned one acre of her hayfield into a giant piece of protest art, plowed and planted to send a message to the data-center industry eyeing Ohio farmland. The earthwork sits off Bunnell Hill Road, about 30 miles north of downtown Cincinnati, and depicts the outline of Ohio, a farmer, a cow and a sign opposing the sale of farmland to data centers.
Leslie Nogle, who has owned the farmland for 55 years, worked with earthwork artist Stan Herd to create the piece, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Herd is an earthwork artist. He flew to Ohio from Peru, where he had been working on a mural depicting the pope, after a group called Data Center Payoffs asked him to create an earthwork in the state.
Herd initially considered land in Columbus before settling on southwest Ohio after falling for Cincinnati, the Enquirer reported. The Warren County Democratic Party connected him with Nogle, and Herd and an eight-person team made four trips to her farm to build the work, creating the outline by mowing and weed-whacking the field, then filling in letters, a barn and a farm scene with mulch, corn and other natural materials. Organizer Bethe Goldenfield said people across political divisions often agree about data centers.
A Rally and a Warning From a Nearby Congressman
Activists unveiled the field art on October 24 at a No Data Centers/Save Our Land rally, where Greg Landsman made an appearance, per the Enquirer’s reporting. Trenton and Wilmington — both closer to active proposals — are already battling developers seeking farmland. A proposed data center near Trenton sits about 20 miles from her farm, according to the Enquirer and WCPO…