In this edition of the RELA Q&A Series, Andy Leathem, RELA’s Legal Counsel, discusses Farm Plans, and how as renewable energy projects become more widespread, developers will rely on Farm Plans to align with landowners and ensure coexistence with farming operations.
Can you explain what a Farm Plan is?
A Farm Plan is a detailed map of a landowner’s property, showing key infrastructure and operational elements. This includes houses, sheds, cattle yards, fences, troughs, water pipelines, access roads and stock routes. The level of detail is entirely up to the landowner, making it a highly adaptable tool.
By integrating the Farm Plan into the legal framework of renewable energy agreements, developers gain a clear understanding of where they can and cannot develop. This clarity ensures projects are designed to align with the landowner’s needs and priorities, laying the groundwork for coexistence between renewable energy infrastructure and farming operations.
How can a well-designed Farm Plan empower landowners in their negotiations with renewable energy developers?
A Farm Plan provides landowners with a clear, visual tool to communicate their needs and priorities to developers. It allows them to designate exclusion zones, such as grazing or cropping land, and establish buffer areas around homes and critical infrastructure. This ensures developers respect the operational realities of the property, giving landowners a stronger position in negotiations.
The idea behind incorporating the Farm Plan into the long-form legal documents is to give developers a visual understanding of how the property works and highlight the aspects of the land and farming operations that are important to the landowner. This visual clarity helps ensure these considerations are respected throughout the development process. It enables landowners to influence project designs in a way that protects their operations while fostering productive, collaborative discussions with developers.
Farm Plans are bespoke to each landowner. What factors are considered when tailoring a plan to a specific property?
The main question to ask when helping to design a Farm Plan would be what is important to the Landowner.
Some landowners are open to working their farming operation around the renewable energy developers plans and won’t feel the need to include many parameters, while other landowners will need a number of parameters to ensure their farming operations can continue with the least amount of interruption.
Particular items we see regularly included in Farm Plans are exclusion zones on certain parts of the property, access roads and internal farm roads, some which can be used by the developer and others which can’t. We are also seeing a lot more proposed infrastructure being included on Farm Plans which shows where some landowners are looking to introduce items such as new water pipelines for troughs and water access, proposed new fence lines and access gates as well where proposed new cattle yards and other infrastructure might be built.
There is no set limit on what a Farm Plan can and cannot include and that’s why it’s important for landowners to consider their Farm plan, as it shows what is important to them and is specific to their individual needs.
How does the Farm Plan process help ensure that renewable energy projects align with a landowner’s vision and farming operations?
The Farm Plan helps create co-existence between a renewable energy project and a landowners farming operation. In an ideal world, it would be great to be able to overlay a renewable energy Developer’s preliminary plan with a landowners Farm Plan and see the link between how they both align. Though there’s usually a little more to it than this, and as mentioned previously, negotiating and understanding each other’s parameters around the Farm Plan and the Preliminary Project Plan help to create this alignment.
This alignment can come in the form of ensuring the Project incorporates such things as existing farm roads, or development of the turbine pads occurs in a way where contours and natural water run-off are not disturbed. These considerations ensure the farming operation can continue while the renewable energy developer is able to develop and construct.
Some landowners may be hesitant to create detailed Farm Plans. What would you say to encourage them to invest the time and effort in this process?
I would say that investing time and effort into the design of a Farm Plan allows the landowner to have a high quality baseline included in the long form legal documents. With this in mind, any subsequent changes to the Farm Plan can potentially be compensated for by the mechanisms included in the land management clauses that have been built into the front end of the long form legal documents. It offers protection to a landowner and is an acknowledgement by the renewable energy developer that the Landowners’ needs in relation to their farming operations are being considered and not interrupted or cast aside for the sake of the renewable energy Project.
During the RELA Connect process, how does RELA use Farm Plans to facilitate discussions and agreements with developers?
The RELA Connect process utilises and encourages the use of Farm Plans to ensure that from the onset a renewable energy developer has a deep understanding of the landowners farming operations, knows what’s important to the Landowner, and clearly understands the parameters of land they are looking to develop.
renewable RELA facilitates discussions with the Landowner to understand the aspects mentioned above, and then works closely with the Landowner to map these out on the Farm Plan. RELA ensures that the Landowner is deeply involved, and basically holding the pen, when designing the Farm Plan to ensure that all the necessary information is clearly conveyed to the renewable energy developer and communicated effectively.
What are some common considerations or challenges that arise when developers overlay their preliminary designs on a landowner’s Farm Plan?
Challenges tend to arise when the initial path and plan designed by the renewable energy developer doesn’t align with a landowners Farm Plan. The main concerns are usually items such as access around the property and exclusion zones. Exclusion Zones are usually put in place on a Farm Plan for specific and important reasons to a Landowner where they don’t want any development taking place, and this is usually because its clear grazing or cropping country. This usually causes issues with renewable energy developers as the clear country is usually the easiest to work with in relation to less clearing, easier access for vehicles and machinery to move around the farm.
Other issues can include contour banks and over ground flow of water which all need to be considered by renewable energy developers to ensure things like erosion don’t occur and any water run off can easily be captured and doesn’t go to waste.
Exclusion zones and flexibility often come up during the planning process. How can landowners balance protecting critical areas of their property while maintaining project viability?
In any renewable energy development, there will always be two sides. One being the landowner and the other being the renewable energy developer. What both parties need to remember is that they aren’t working against each other, they are working together to create mutually beneficial outcomes for one another. The Landowner is looking to secure off-farm income whilst not sacrificing their existing farming operation, and the renewable energy Developer is looking to fulfil their mandate of developing a renewable energy project on viable country while coexisting with the landowners farming operation.
With this in mind, when dealing with the Farm Plan, both parties need to consider each other’s goals and remember that there may need to be compromise at times. Exclusion Zones must be identified early so that the renewable energy developer is aware of areas which are not to be developed and can plan around them. In the same breath, a landowner can’t exclude their entire property and expect a renewable energy developer to make the Project work.
In most cases, as long as an renewable energy developer understands why certain areas are excluded or a landowner understands why a wind turbine for instance is best suited in a certain position, conversations can be had and mutually agreeable solutions can often be found.
Beyond ensuring coexistence, how do Farm Plans contribute to the sustainability and long-term productivity of a landowner’s farming operations?
Farm Plans, if designed correctly, can contribute to the sustainability and long term productivity of farming operations by improving aspects of the landowners property. An example of this could be an area of the property which was usually hard to access via a rough farm track being opened up and made to be easily accessible by an renewable energy Developer who needs to use the same track to access their wind turbines or solar panels.
Another example might be that water run off from the pads of a wind turbine are drained correctly and directed to water catchment areas on the farm which lead to better percentages of water catchment, limited wastage and again if designed correctly, no erosion.
To achieve these sustainable outcomes a renewable energy developer needs to sit down and talk through with the landowner what they need for the project to work such as access roads and location of infrastructure, and then how those aspects can be utilised to then contribute to the landowners long term productivity. This should then be reflected on the Farm Plan so both parties know what has been agreed from the get go.
Looking ahead, how do you see the role of Farm Plans evolving as renewable energy projects become more widespread in agricultural areas?
As renewable energy projects become more widespread, renewable energy developers will begin to rely heavily on the Farm Plan as a way of seeking early alignment with a Landowner and developing a mutual understanding of how the underlying land asset needs to be managed and developed to ensure coexistence with the Landowner and their farming operations.
Landowners should also look to make sure their Farm Plans are as up to date as they can possibly be, and outline exactly where development can and cannot occur. This sets parameters from the outset and gets the Landowner and renewable energy developer engaging with each other early on, and as a result, can help to lay the foundations of a strong commercial relationship moving into the future.