Farmland in the midwest has been shrinking consistently for decades. Your comments would make sense if the opposite of this were true, and there was demand for additional farmland, but there isn't. Ohio reduced the amount of land it needed for farming by about 800,000 acres from 1997-2017 and in that period increase agricultural output[0], so it's not like the amount of food produced is going down!

If people in rural areas NIMBY away solar power in these areas, more than likely the land is just going to have some exurban building plopped down on it.

Also, I don't get the whole thing where people act like farmland is sacred and good for the environment. I like food, I understand the value of farms, but farmland is typically pretty awful for the surrounding environment.

The area I live in Ohio has a whole handful of lakes, and any of them that are surrounded by farmland (and to a certain extent exurbs and suburbs) are incredibly polluted, to the point where you have to look at "forecasts" on ODNR's website to see if the water is healthy to swim in.

0: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/Full_Re... (check table 1 for historical data)