News from rural America.

Affordable housing in Wiscasset, Maine is stalled after a proposed data center disrupted plans, farms and ranches now account for 83 percent of solar projects and Colorado farmers turn to rye after a record-setting dry winter.

TRANSCRIPT

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

Wiscasset, Maine lost nearly a quarter of a million dollars for affordable housing after a data center derailed its plans.

Last year, a 300-acre site was awarded federal funding from the COVID-era American Rescue Plan to build housing for first responders and municipal workers.

But when an offer came in to build a data center instead, the town lost the housing money.

Peter Arnold is a local resident who says the town got sidetracked by the data center's economic promise.

They were so enamored by the idea of a $5 billion data center landing in Wisconsin that they kind of got blinded.

When residents found out about the plan after months of secrecy, they raised concerns.

Molly Feeney, who works on homelessness with the group Homeworthy, notes costs have skyrocketed.

The housing crisis is statewide for sure, but what Lincoln and Knox and Waldo County are seeing are even steeper climbs.

Now both projects are stalled, leaving the town without federal housing money or a data center.

Agrivoltaics often mean sheep grazing under solar panels.

But case studies show almost every type of livestock and crops can be raised that way.

The Trump administration is blocking solar project funding, arguing renewables eat up prime farmland.

But David Gall with the Solar and Storage Industries Institute says agrivoltaics actually means income that keeps farms operating.

Rural Americans want to see rural America continue to look like the community they grew up in.

Solar continues to be the fastest growing energy source.

And more than 83 percent of new solar developments are going up on farms and ranches.

What the federal funding was intended to do was accelerate that innovation.

Without that support, you're still going to see innovation.

You're just not going to see it move as quickly.

Colorado's dry winter resulted in a record low snowpack.

Ilana Newman reports farmers are trying a less thirsty crop.

The Rye Resurgence Project is the brainchild of Sarah Jones, who wants farmers to grow more rye instead of barley or alfalfa, two crops that use more water than rye.

Selling it was another question.

Could we convert or convince farmers to make some changes to grow more rye and less of these other crops?

Rye needed a bit of a rebrand because it's less sellable than other grains.

Jones reached out to bakeries, distilleries, and mills to find partners who would buy the grain.

If you multiply that by every pizza restaurant, bakery, brewery, distillery in Colorado, the positive impact that can have on our soil and on our region and on our aquifer could be huge.

I'm Ilana Newman.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.