Guest Opinion by Rick Pate, candidate for Lt. Governor
As I have traveled across the state over the past eight years as your Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, I have been increasingly concerned about the loss of farmland to urban encroachment. Recent trends show by 2040 Alabama will pave over, fragment or compromise 545,000 acres of farmland, according to Census of Agriculture 2017. That is the equivalent of losing 3,300 farms, $329 million in farm outputs and 5,600 jobs, with 65% of the conversion on Alabama’s best land. Madison, Limestone and Baldwin Counties will be hardest hit.
Citizens all over Alabama – and the nation – are being inundated with proposals to build large data centers in their communities. Some of these facilities are not simply enormous, they are known as “hyperscale” data centers, often involving millions of square feet under roof…