As artificial intelligence reshapes the global economy, Pennsylvania farmers are watching their fields eye a new threat: massive data centers hungry for flat, affordable land, writes Mark Walters for USA Today.

State lawmakers are now weighing regulations to protect the state’s agricultural backbone from large-scale data center development, and the debate is exposing a sharp tension between two competing visions for Pennsylvania’s future.

Leading the charge is Republican state Rep. Marla Brown of Lawrence County, who is pushing a proposal that would outright prohibit data center construction on farmland.

The stakes, Brown argues, are enormous. Pennsylvania’s agricultural industry generates $132 billion annually and supports nearly 600,000 jobs.

Speaking about balancing the state’s agricultural contributions with the growing need for data centers, Brown said, “Pennsylvania must not fall behind in the data center race, but we have to move forward responsibly to protect the state’s agricultural resources.”

Despite leading the nation in farmland preservation efforts, Pennsylvania lost roughly 220,000 acres of farmland between 2017 and 2022, and the total number of farms fell by 8%, according to agricultural census data. The AI boom threatens to accelerate that erosion.

Brown’s proposal hasn’t been formally introduced as legislation yet, but it’s already gaining allies. The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau has come out against siting data centers on prime farmland, signaling that the agricultural community is prepared to fight.

Learn more about the growing wave of proposals targeting data center construction in Pennsylvania in Bucks County Courier Times.

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