What are the returns for a landowner leasing a solar farm vs passively growing pines? My state has a lot of land to use and a good portion of the rural part is pine. Some landowners harvest pine trees on unused land.
Solar panel leases are so long (50 years on top of the decade to interconnect), so they come with additional negatives as you are often signing up the next generation for a relationship that they had no say in.
Depending on what you're doing with your land, you can multi-use solar farm + grazing, or solar farm + some crops which increases it's value.