Data Centers on Farmland: The Fight Over Rural Land

Short answer: Yes, tech and utility companies are buying up farmland and ranchland across rural America to build large AI data centers. It matters because these sites can pull land out of farming for good and drain the water and power that farms depend on. Farmers, ranchers, and lawmakers in more than a dozen states are now fighting back.

What's Happening: Land Being Bought Up

Companies are quietly buying thousands of acres of farmland and ranchland to build AI data centers. Demand for AI computing has set off a land rush across rural America. Much of that land was growing crops or grazing cattle.

In Montana, a company called Montana Property LLC quietly bought about 5,100 acres near Broadview in 2024. That is roughly eight square miles for one data center campus, the Billings Gazette found. The utility NorthWestern Energy agreed to supply up to 1,000 megawatts of power to the project.

This is not just a Montana story. US farmland is already shrinking fast. Between 2017 and 2022, the country lost about 20 million acres of farmland, an area close to the size of Maine, according to the USDA Census of Agriculture. Data centers add new pressure to that farmland loss.

Local ranchers say they were caught off guard by the Montana sale. Similar quiet deals are now unfolding in farm states from the Midwest to the South. See where these sites are on our data center map.

Why Data Centers Want Farmland

Data centers want farmland because it is flat, cheap, open, and close to water and power. The same features that grow food also make land easy to build on. That is why data centers buying farmland has become so common.

Flat, cleared land needs little grading. Large farm parcels let a company put one giant campus in a single place. Rural land also sits near power lines, rivers, and underground water.

Here is the catch. A single campus can cover several square miles of former cropland. Companies also pay far above farm value, so a neighbor cannot buy the land back to farm it.

Big AI firms can outbid almost any farmer. A local family simply cannot match a billion-dollar budget.

And the change is usually permanent. As the American Farm Bureau Federation notes, once farmland is converted to industrial use, "it is rarely returned to production." Learn more in our data center impact guide.

Water: The Fight With Agriculture

A data center can take water away from nearby farms because both draw from the same rivers and aquifers. Big data centers use water to cool their servers. That puts data centers vs agriculture in direct competition.

A single large data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water a day, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute reports. That equals the daily water use of a town of tens of thousands of people. In dry states, that water has to come from somewhere.

In Arizona, data centers already compete with farms for scarce water. When an aquifer drops, wells cost more to pump. Crop yields can fall, and food prices can rise.

Here is a hidden twist. Much of the West runs on "first in time, first in right" water law. But a data center that buys into a city water system can keep drawing even as farmers face cuts during a drought. The industry says it is cutting water use, and some new sites use cooling systems that need no water at all.

Neighbors also worry about their wells running dry. Once an aquifer is drained, it can take decades to refill.

Electricity and the Grid

Data centers use enormous amounts of electricity, which can strain the grid and raise power bills for nearby farms and homes. AI computing is power-hungry. One large campus can use as much power as a small city.

Data centers used about 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report. That share could reach 6.7% to 12% by 2028. Farms feel the squeeze.

US farm electricity costs were about $5.75 billion in 2019. They are forecast to hit $8.5 billion in 2026, a 48% jump. When demand spikes, utilities often build costly new plants and pass the bill to everyone.

Some states now want data centers to pay for their own new power lines and plants. Others still let regular customers share the cost.

Wondering if this hits your own bill? See do data centers raise electric bills.

Do Rural Towns Actually Benefit?

Data centers create very few permanent jobs, even though towns are often promised a jobs boom. Building one employs many construction workers. But once it opens, a giant campus may run with only dozens of full-time staff.

The industry points to real numbers. The Data Center Coalition, whose state-policy VP Dan Diorio, says data centers supported more than 115,000 jobs in Illinois and paid about $1.85 billion in state and local taxes in 2023.

Critics note that most of those jobs are temporary construction work. A finished campus needs security and IT staff, not field hands. Meanwhile the land no longer grows food or supports farm jobs.

Local leaders often chase the tax revenue a big campus promises. But critics ask whether short-term cash is worth losing productive farmland forever.

We break down the promise in do data centers create jobs.

Farmer Opposition: Family Farms, Not Data Farms

Farmers and ranchers are organizing to oppose data centers that threaten their land, water, and way of life. The slogan "family farms, not data farms" has spread across rural meetings and yard signs. The worry is both practical and personal.

The Illinois Farm Bureau is a leading voice. Philip Nelson, a LaSalle County farmer and Illinois Farm Bureau president, told FarmWeek the concern comes down to "the water usage and the electricity consumption these data centers are going to draw."

Farm groups are not simply anti-development. Many defend private property rights, so a farmer can sell if they choose. But they push back hard when a project drains shared water or raises a neighbor's power bill.

In Montana, ranch families near Broadview joined the Northern Plains Resource Council to demand answers. Groups now track data centers taking farmland all across the country.

The State Restriction Wave

Lawmakers in at least 14 states and dozens of local governments are weighing limits or bans on new data centers. The pushback has moved from kitchen tables to statehouses. Many rules aim to protect farmland, water, and power.

Local outcomes are already real. In Indiana, Marshall and Cass counties banned new data centers outright, according to WFYI. Roughly a dozen more Indiana counties passed ordinances or temporary moratoriums.

Other places are moving too. Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, passed an 18-month moratorium. In Georgia, the city of Fayetteville rewrote its rules to effectively ban data centers within city limits.

Rules vary widely from place to place. Some ask only for more disclosure, while others block new projects completely.

Not every effort wins. In 2026, Maine came close to the first statewide moratorium, but Governor Janet Mills vetoed it, CNN reported. Indiana even passed a law letting developers build on some farmland without zoning changes or public hearings.

Virginia: "Data Center Alley" and the Fastest Farmland-to-Server Conversion in the US

No state shows the farmland-to-server pipeline more clearly than Virginia. The state has more operating data centers than any other in the country—371 live facilities totaling 17,378 megawatts, with another 436 projects planned that would add roughly 37,140 more megawatts, according to 2026 industry tracking. Northern Virginia alone is the largest data center market in the world, ending 2025 with over 4,000 megawatts of inventory and a vacancy rate near zero.

The area earned its "Data Center Alley" nickname around Ashburn, where real-estate developers spent the 2010s and 2020s converting farmland into server space. That boom has now used up most of the available sites: land with high-voltage transmission access, water and sewer service, and workable zoning has gotten scarce in Loudoun and Prince William counties, pushing new campuses south along the I-95 corridor into Stafford, Spotsylvania, and Richmond—the same pattern seen in Montana and Indiana above, just a decade further along.

Virginia's trajectory is also a preview for other states weighing new projects: once a region becomes a preferred data-center market, the land rush rarely reverses—it moves to the next county over.

Data center vs. solar farm: two very different land deals

Rural landowners increasingly face a choice between leasing to a data center or a solar developer, and the two deals look nothing alike:

Neither deal is automatically better for a community—a data center brings a larger one-time tax payment and a bigger construction payroll, while a solar lease brings smaller, steadier income with less strain on local water and power. The point isn't that one is "good AI" and the other "bad AI"; it's that the same acre of Virginia farmland now has two very different industrial buyers, and the terms of the deal matter as much as which buyer shows up.

What You Can Do

You can help slow or stop a data center on farmland near you by acting early and organizing your neighbors. Most projects need local approval. That is where ordinary people have real power.

Watch for rezoning notices and quiet land sales. Show up to county and zoning meetings. Ask about water use, power costs, and what happens to the land later.

Push your local board to require water studies and firm limits before any approval. Team up with farm groups and neighbors. A united community is very hard to ignore.

You do not need to be an expert to speak up. Simple, clear questions at a public meeting carry real weight.

For a step-by-step plan, read how to stop a data center. To connect with others taking action, visit our fighting back hub. You can also see how AI is changing farming itself in AI in agriculture, or explore the wider AI backlash.