CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Solar Farm On Prime Farmland Debate

Harlow Township council must soon rule on a solar farm on 160 hectares of farmland along Concession Road 6. The developer, Westvale Solar Partners, says the project would generate enough electricity for roughly 15,000 homes and bring the township about $400,000 a year in taxes and community payments. The application exposes a familiar rural dilemma: flat, well-drained land, the easiest to cover with panels, frequently grows the best crops.

Glen Mackie, whose family has farmed part of the site for three generations, has agreed to lease 120 hectares to the developer for 35 years. “Corn prices fluctuate wildly, but lease payments arrive regardless of weather.” Moreover, none of his children intends to take over. “Leasing keeps the land in the family instead of in the hands of a buyer who might pave it,” he reasons. Because panels sit on posts instead of concrete, the fields could be cultivated again afterward.

Soil scientist Sunita Rao is skeptical the land would emerge unscathed. The site is classified as prime agricultural land, a category steadily lost to development. “Thirty-five years outlasts most careers,” she observes. “Once land leaves production, the expertise, drainage systems and local suppliers disappear with it.” Rao has no quarrel with solar power itself, preferring warehouse roofs, parking lots and exhausted gravel pits, though she allows that a well-managed site with permanent ground cover might leave some soils healthier than decades of intensive cropping.

Energy economist Marc-André Thibault considers both sides preoccupied with the wrong question. “What matters is who benefits, and right now profits flow to distant shareholders while the township receives a cheque.” He wants council to insist on community ownership of a share, and on panels raised high enough for sheep to graze beneath them. Rooftop solar, he cautions, costs considerably more per unit of power.

Reeve Colette Brandt considers outright rejection unlikely given the province’s appetite for clean electricity, but she demands a financial guarantee that Westvale will remove the panels and restore the soil. Having watched one company abandon a worked-out gravel pit, she refuses to bequeath that problem to “the council of 2060.” Thibault’s grazing idea intrigues her, provided it causes no delay.

Farming two concessions over, I sympathize with Mr. Mackie: with no one in the family 6. Choose…prepared to sellable to ride out corn pricesliving in the townshipeager to take up the plough, a dependable lease must feel like a lifeline. Still, I doubt his fields will simply 7. Choose…spring back into productionend up paved overcome out healthier than beforefetch a higher price after thirty-five years; Dr. Rao is right that skills and suppliers vanish along with the crops. Yet her hope that 8. Choose…community-owned arraysbuilt-up sites such as roofsgrazing under raised panelssmaller farms on the best land could meet the province’s needs looks naive given Mr. Thibault’s point about cost. The reeve’s demand for 9. Choose…a stake for localstaller supportsmoney in escrowsteeper annual levies is the bare minimum, since companies change hands. And if council says yes, I hope it embraces 10. Choose…rooftop arrayscommunity sharesa shorter lease for the developerdual use of the fields, as the reeve herself seems inclined to.