The federal government is leasing public land to artificial intelligence companies while family farms collapse and grocery prices surge. America requires more farmers, ranchers, and private landowners—not more data centers and chatbots. Yet the federal government is prioritizing artificial intelligence over agriculture, offering vast tracts of public land to tech corporations while family farms and ranches vanish and consumer costs escalate.
Conservatives have long warned that excessive federal land ownership, particularly in the West, threatens liberty and prosperity. The Trump administration shares this concern but has erred by accelerating AI infrastructure on government property. If the nation needs a new Manhattan Project, it should focus on food security, not AI development.
Instead of transferring control to states or private citizens, the policy empowers an industry that consumes significant resources with minimal tangible benefits for ordinary Americans. This aligns with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s controversial plan to create 15-minute cities and “affordable housing.”
In July, President Trump signed an executive order titled Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure as part of its AI Action Plan. The directive streamlines permits, provides financial incentives, and opens federal properties—including Superfund sites and military bases—to AI-related projects. The Department of Energy identified four initial locations: Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, Idaho National Laboratory, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Last month, the list expanded to include five Air Force bases—Arnold (Tennessee), Davis-Monthan (Arizona), Edwards (California), Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (New Jersey), and Robins (Georgia)—totaling over 3,000 acres for lease to private developers at fair market value.
While locating AI facilities on military property avoids disrupting residential or agricultural communities, the favoritism toward Big Tech raises critical questions: Is this the optimal use of public land? Will anchoring these corporations on federal property make them “too big to fail,” akin to the banks that caused the 2008 crash?
President Trump has acknowledged the shortage of affordable meat as a national crisis. If any industry deserves federal support, it is America’s independent farmers and ranchers. Yet while Washington clears land for billion-dollar data centers, small producers are vanishing. Over the past five years, the U.S. has lost roughly 141,000 family farms and 150,000 cattle operations. The national cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1951. Since 1982, America has lost more than half a million farms—nearly a quarter of its total.
Multiple pressures—including rising input costs, droughts, and inflation—have crippled family farms unable to compete with corporate conglomerates. Federal land policy also exacerbates the crisis. The government’s control over Western lands restricts grazing rights, water access, and expansion opportunities. If Washington suddenly wants to sell or lease public land, why not prioritize ranchers needing it for feed and forage?
The Conservation Reserve Program worsens the issue. The 2018 Farm Bill extension locked up 30 million acres of land—five million in Wyoming and Montana alone—under the guise of conservation. Wealthy absentee owners exploit the program by briefly “farming” land to qualify it as cropland, then retiring it into CRP to collect taxpayer payments. Over half of CRP acreage is owned by non-farmers, some earning over $200 per acre while the land remains idle.
These acres could support hundreds of cattle per section or produce millions of tons of hay. Instead, they create artificial shortages that drive up feed costs. During the post-COVID inflation spike, hay prices surged 40%, reaching $250 per ton this year. Even now, inflated prices cost ranchers six figures annually in extra expenses in a business operating on thin margins.
If the nation needs a new Manhattan Project, it should focus on food security, not AI development. Free up federal lands and idle CRP acreage for productive use. Help ranchers grow herds and lower food prices instead of subsidizing a speculative industry already bloated with venture capital and hype.
At present, every dollar of revenue at OpenAI costs roughly $7.77 to generate—a debt spiral that invites the next taxpayer bailout. By granting these firms privileged access to public land, the government risks creating another class of untouchable corporate wards, as it did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two decades ago.
AI won’t feed Americans. It won’t fix supply chains. It won’t lower grocery bills. Until these companies can put real food on real tables, federal land should serve the purpose God intended—to sustain the people who live and work upon it.
