Over the past several weeks, I’ve spoken with many of you who have strong feelings about the energy and agriculture project my company Silicon Ranch is bringing to the Stockton community. Some of you have questions, some have concerns, and some simply want to be sure that the character of the community is respected. As someone who comes from a small town myself, I understand that instinct and know that the places we call home deserve careful and intentional consideration.
If questions go unanswered, doubts and misinformation fill the void. Some of you may see us as just another big company instead of what we really are: people who care deeply about what we do and the communities we call home. So let me be clear about who Silicon Ranch is, what we’re doing, and what this discussion is really about.
Silicon Ranch isn’t some giant, faceless corporation. We’re folks who believe in being good neighbors, keeping our word, and doing what we say we’ll do. That’s how we’ve earned trust in communities across the Southeast for the past 15 years, communities that are proud to call us neighbors and grateful for the value we’ve brought with us.
In Baldwin County, Silicon Ranch will be a taxpaying landowner making a private investment in the community. This is not a speculative development. Our investment in energy and agriculture has been approved by the Alabama Public Service Commission, which issued a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, and represents a $350 million commitment to build critical, American‑made energy infrastructure. 
The project includes solar modules manufactured here in Alabama and will strengthen the local electric grid while helping meet the state’s rapidly growing energy demand – enough to power more than 40,000 homes.
It also represents an investment in the local ag economy, creating opportunities for aspiring farmers and ranchers to join us as stewards of our land to make it agriculturally productive by grazing livestock through our agribusiness. The livestock that graze on our land in Baldwin County will contribute to the local food supply and improve soil health, helping maintain healthy pastures without the need for chemicals or frequent mowing cycles.
As we do all this, our company will become one of the largest taxpayers in Baldwin County, contributing more than $50 million in new tax revenues over the life of the project to benefit local government services, the Baldwin County School District, and other community-identified priorities, including infrastructure. Plus, we don’t need things like water or sewer services, so every dollar we pay goes straight into the local tax base.
Despite all the fabricated claims and manufactured narratives from those who oppose bringing these benefits to Stockton, let me be clear about the land we are lawfully purchasing. As the man who coined “America’s Amazon” recently observed, the property in question is “not pristine Baldwin County Wetlands;” it is instead privately-owned industrial timberland that has been managed for commercial production for more than half a century. It has been planted, thinned, harvested, clear-cut, and replanted in rotations. It is not public land. It is not a wildlife refuge. It is not a community hunting preserve. It is private property long used for industrial timber production.
We will use our private property for three principal purposes: clean energy infrastructure, some of the most productive pastureland in the state, and more than 2,500 acres of land conservation. Just as the previous landowners had every right to use their property for industrial timber production, we have every right to use it for energy, agriculture and conservation.
Despite what you may have heard, what we will not do is build on wetlands. Formal wetlands delineations are being submitted to the appropriate regulatory agencies, and all regulations are being followed. The natural resources at this site will be safeguarded instead of processed, preserved rather than pressured, and leveraged as an asset for agricultural production rather than mitigated as a liability to industrial harvesting.
Fueled by a propaganda campaign, orchestrated efforts to obstruct our investment have intensified with inflammatory rhetoric and conspiracy theories. But to those in Baldwin County who are interested in the facts, don’t be fooled: this debate is fundamentally not about solar panels, wetlands, or hunting access. It is about whether lawful private property rights can be overridden because some folks prefer a different outcome. America’s commitment to private property is not situational and doesn’t just apply when neighbors approve of a particular land use. And it is precisely that lack of collective consensus that serves as the impetus for America’s singular private property rights.
If a lawful landowner can be prevented from selling to a buyer because others dislike the intended use, what does that mean for a farmer who wants to sell to a homebuilder? A timber owner who wants to convert to row crops? A family that wants to subdivide inherited land? A landowner who simply wants to sell to the highest bidder? If a collective preference – often driven by the loudest voices in the room and underpinned by misinformation – can override lawful ownership, then no property right is truly secure.
Some have argued that this land should be “preserved.” Preserved as what? It is not currently preserved, nor was it when it was marketed for industrial development before we entered into a lawful contract to purchase it. It is industrial timberland that has been historically clear-cut and replanted. Private hunting access does not make it public land.
If the propaganda campaign successfully introduces zoning to Baldwin County, thereby obstructing a lawful private transaction, it will represent a serious departure from America’s – and this community’s – historic commitment to private property, self-determination, and economic freedom. This outcome would mark a fundamental erosion of not only our private property rights, but indeed all those in Baldwin County, through the imposition of a legally unfathomable collective interest over private property rights, by implication rather than evidence. The sad irony, of course, would be that such action would be much more Marx than Madison, as feared by the residents of Baldwin County during the 2012 consideration of the Horizon 2025 comprehensive plan.
For our part, our goal is simple: to make sure Stockton and Baldwin County benefit from what we bring – whether it’s the capital we invest, the taxes we pay, the charitable contributions we make, the jobs we create, the local businesses we support, the energy we produce, or the agricultural products we raise on our land.
We will continue to operate transparently and to provide the facts. We will follow every law and regulation. And as a taxpaying landowner, we will exercise our right – and fulfill our responsibility – to steward this property responsibly for the long term. I encourage you to visit SiliconRanch.com/Stockton to learn more.
Reagan Farr is the co-founder and CEO of Silicon Ranch.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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