If you look closely enough, today’s landscape tells a rather unsettling and ironic story: hillsides and mountainous terrains are being shaved bare, while fertile farmlands are steadily turned into endless rows of solar panels—as if we can run a country entirely on sunshine and somehow expect rice, vegetables, and common sense to grow out of photovoltaic cells.

What makes this even more alarming is how these projects continue to be promoted and fast-tracked through weak and poorly coordinated approval practices. Oversight appears fragmented and safeguards are unevenly enforced across the agencies tasked with reviewing renewable energy (RE) developments, primarily the Department of Energy (DOE).

Do not be deceived by the label “green energy,” as renewable does not automatically mean sustainable. What’s actually unfolding is a troubling distortion of sustainability itself, where productive farmlands are steadily gobbled up by RE projects at the expense of food security. Additionally, forests are being stripped bare, leaving behind a geographical setting that is increasingly “clean” in energy terms but depleted in ecological and agricultural reality.

If this reckless development trajectory continues, we will face not only empty dinner tables but also deadlier floods, catastrophic landslides, and living spaces permanently scarred by environmental destruction. True sustainability does not trade food, forests, and lives for megawatts.

The bottom line is clear: we are standing at the edge of “Farmageddon”—an incrementally worsening crisis where high-yield croplands are steadily sacrificed for poorly planned solar developments, effectively replacing food production with energy generation and steering the country toward a future where the land needed to feed its people is disappearing.

The DOE should likewise disclose clear and verifiable data on the extent of forest clearing required for these mega-scale solar projects, including the number of trees cut or uprooted and the specific sites affected. That way, the environmental cost is no longer buried behind green branding.

Why has this become the country’s development model? Because the DOE is treating large-scale solar expansion as a race for megawatts rather than a responsibility for sustainable land stewardship. The moment it began awarding power supply agreements (PSAs) for massive solar installations without first ensuring rigorous land-use safeguards, it effectively gave developers free rein to occupy virtually any site they deemed suitable—whether tracts of arable land, forested hills, or environmentally sensitive zones. This is not strategic energy planning; it is regulatory negligence disguised as “energy transition” policy.

If irresponsible mining is already condemned for disregarding land, water, and future generations, then it is increasingly clear that similar reckless patterns are emerging in RE developments with little regard for ecological limits. That raises a critical concern: are we simply replacing one form of environmental exploitation with another?

And there’s more. The DOE’s RE expansion is also moving beyond land and into the seas through planned offshore wind auctions. That, too, introduces systemic risks over marine space allocation and the potential marginalization of fishing communities whose livelihoods depend on these waters.

To this day, there is still no institutionalized framework to ensure fair and adequate compensation for fisherfolk affected by these projects. Just as with large-scale solar expansion on land, there remains no concrete, enforceable national plan to protect marine ecosystems and the sea-based food chain that millions depend on, leaving both biodiversity and food security exposed to deep uncertainties.

In other energy markets, policy restrictions on ground-mounted solar facilities are already being imposed to prevent uncontrolled land conversion and protect food systems. This highlights a major question for the Philippines: should we continue allowing unrestricted expansion, or is it time to pause, reassess, and adopt similar safeguards before irreversible damage to land, food security, and ecosystems becomes the new normal?

Very early on, previous studies cautioned that this country was paying insufficient attention to the critical energy-versus-food nexus in its solar expansion strategy. Despite those warnings, land use for RE continues to proceed without clear and properly demarcated site planning. Alarmingly, this very policy gap has been acknowledged in the Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) itself; yet, that concern remains an unheeded warning on paper.

A disturbing contradiction persists in the field: solar developers often claim they avoid productive farmlands, but a simple journey to the provinces tells a different story. Once-thriving agricultural areas are now occupied by vast solar installations. This disconnect exposes a foundational vulnerability in oversight: are these assurances actually being verified by government regulators, or are they simply accepted at face value while reckless land conversion unobtrusively continues on the ground?

If there is one consistent pattern in the DOE’s approach, it is the illusion of action without the substance of delivery. It has policies that look active in press releases but remain largely ineffective when measured against real-world outcomes.

In the initial years of the Marcos administration—and even prior to the awarding of gigawatt-scale, ground-mounted solar projects under Green Energy Auctions (GEAs) 2 and 4—the DOE issued a steady stream of assurances that it would resolve long-standing conflicts in land-use priorities. Yet, those repeated press statements have raised false expectations rather than creating actual regulatory guardrails.

So the central question is simple: has the DOE actually followed its own guidance on priority land use and the protection of energy and food security? Obviously not!

In fact, if you travel to the provinces and ask for vegetables and fruits that were once easily available, the response from relatives and friends is increasingly the same: those crops are no longer grown because the land has been sold and converted into solar farms. It is thus clear that local food availability is covertly giving way to a new ecological fabric where agriculture is actively displaced.

Energy transition is a valid path to decarbonization, but it becomes self-deception when “environmental protection” is used to justify resource harm elsewhere—most especially when prime agricultural zones are converted without restraint and highland areas are reduced to raw ground in the name of clean energy.

On a recent flight descending into Metro Manila, the view from above was deeply troubling: mountainous terrains that once carried dense green cover now appear denuded, exposed, and visibly altered, leaving a clear imprint of unchecked land transformation.

While most countries do not impose blanket moratoriums on solar land use, many have already drawn firm regulatory boundaries—tightening rules on land allocation, environmental screening, and investment discipline to ensure that solar expansion does not come at the expense of food chains, ecosystems, and long-term spatial planning.

Many countries across Europe—including Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom—as well as the United States, are improving enforcement mechanisms on the use of land for ground-mounted solar installations.

In Italy, ground-mounted PV is no longer allowed on most agricultural land, with exceptions only for agrivoltaics and previously approved or EU-funded projects. Meanwhile, some autonomous regions in Spain have imposed temporary moratoriums, primarily in the Balearic Islands, which suspended approvals for new rural solar projects while updating planning rules.

In the Netherlands, parliament has moved to restrict large-scale solar on agricultural land, allowing it only as a last resort when no alternatives exist. This established a clear land-use hierarchy that prioritizes rooftops, brownfields, and degraded sites over intensively cultivable land.

Under France’s policy, agrivoltaics is increasingly favored over conventional ground-mounted solar on agronomically productive land. In the United Kingdom, planners must assess agricultural land quality before approving installations, thereby embedding farmland protection into the decision process rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Meanwhile, several counties in the United States—such as in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and New York—have imposed 6- to 12-month moratoriums on utility-scale solar, using the pause to recalibrate zoning rules and reinforce land-use planning before permitting further large-scale expansion.

Among our ASEAN neighbors, Vietnam is taking a managed land-use approach to solar development, approving projects only when they align with national and provincial planning frameworks while deliberately protecting strategic assets like rice fields and protected forests from indiscriminate conversion.

In Thailand’s case, a much more restrictive policy on project sites is administered by its Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO). Solar installations may be permitted only if they are ancillary to agriculture or part of an agrivoltaic system where farming continues to be the principal activity. If electricity generation effectively replaces agriculture as the primary land use, the landholder risks violating ALRO conditions.

If many solar developers continue to eye the Philippines, it may be because land-use controls are perceived as weak and opportunities effectively open-ended, where productive farmlands are steadily converted and forested areas are increasingly exploited. Alongside this, regulators appear slow to enforce clear boundaries that would prevent renewable expansion from becoming an unchecked land grab.

This country is already heavily dependent on food imports, yet we seem to be stretching agriculture to its limit until future generations are left with no real choice but to face a worsening food crisis. The dinner table may still exist, but what should be on it is no longer guaranteed. ###