Farmland Partners Inc. has signed a ground lease agreement for a solar farm on one of its South Carolina farms.
The agreement allows the lessee to lease a minimum of 60 acres and a maximum of 200 acres of row crop farmland for purposes of converting the farmland, at the lessee’s cost, into a modern solar farm. Farmland did not reveal the identity of the lease.
The 200 acres available to the lessee are currently leased to a local farmer for an annual rental rate of approximately US$200 per acre, and, under the terms of the agreement, will have an initial annual rental rate of US$1,000 per acre, subject to annual increases of 1.5% beginning in the fifth year of the lease.
The agreement is for an initial 25-year term with the potential for up to two five-year extensions and certain rights for an early termination beginning after 15 years. As an illustration, if the lessee uses 130 of the 200 acres available for the solar farm, the total rent across the 2,183 acres of tillable farmland available on the South Carolina farm will increase by approximately 25% and increase the cap rate to more than 6.3%. If the full 200 acres are converted to solar farm use, the farm-wide cap rate will be more than 7.0%.
