LOPERA, Spain—At his farm in southern Spain, Francisco Campos looked worriedly at a green sea of centuries-old olive trees that he fears will face the axe to make way for a proposed solar park.
“Cutting down olive trees to install solar panels is a crime,” the 64-year-old farmer told AFP in Lopera, a town of whitewashed buildings with 3,600 residents in the sunny southern region of Andalusia, Spain’s olive-growing heartland.
Spain is the world’s top producer of olive oil, but the fertile agricultural land long used by olive producers is now in high demand from power firms looking to install solar farms.
And with nearly 3,000 hours of sunshine per year, Andalusia is one of the Spanish regions with the highest number of solar panels as a renewables boom makes the country a European leader in green energy.
Renewable energy firms such as Greenalia and FRV Arroyadas have requested permission to build multiple solar farms near Lopera, which farmers say will affect up to 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of property.
The businesses negotiated agreements to lease the bulk of the land required for their projects but encountered significant opposition from hundreds of small landowners.
This prompted the regional government of Andalusia to announce it will expropriate some land needed for the plants, declaring them to be in “the public interest”.
“Is it in the public interest for them to take my land and give it to a company so that the company can profit? This has no benefit for us,” said Campos.
“Our way of life is going to be destroyed,” he added.