Kentucky Farmer Rejects $26 Million AI Data Center Offer to Preserve Family Farmland

'You Can't Get Food Out of a Data Center': Family Rejects Tech Company's $26 Million Offer for Their Farm

Tech companies are spending many billions of dollars on massive data center projects across the country amid the ongoing AI boom, but not everyone is willing to sell. An 82-year-old Kentucky farmer and her family rejected an offer of more than $26 million to give over roughly half of their 1,200-acre family farm to an unnamed company planning a massive data center project. "They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we're not," Ida Huddleston told the local news outlet WKRC earlier this year. "We know whenever our food is disappearing, our lands are disappearing, and we don't have any water -- and that poison. Well, we know we've had it." Family farm fed the hungry during Great Depression Huddleston's daughter, Delsia Bare, told WKRC that the family has owned the land outside Maysville, Kentucky, for generations and even grew wheat used to help supply bread lines during the Great Depression. Beyond their personal connection to the property, the family has concerns about the project's water use and potential pollution. Farmland in Mason County is worth roughly $6,000 an acre, according to Fortune. However, Huddleston was offered about $60,000 an acre for 71 acres, while Bare was offered $48,000 an acre for 463 acres. Together, the offers came to $26 million. Bare told People Magazine that the family initially signed a contract to sell, fearing that the company would lobby the county government to invoke eminent domain and force them to sell for far less. They regretted the decision almost immediately and ultimately backed out of the deal. Bare has since joined a lawsuit challenging the project. "Money don't mean anything if you don't have food, water and can't breathe. And they're not making any more land," Huddleston told People. "You can't get food out of a data center." For some, the money is too good to pass up Still, other nearby landowners agreed to sell and in May Data Center Dynamics reported that the Mason County Fiscal Court approved the rezoning of 28 properties totaling roughly 2,080 acres for a proposed data center development. The project arrives as major tech companies like Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI are pouring billions of dollars into the infrastructure needed to train and run increasingly powerful AI models. But these projects have also sparked a growing backlash, especially from local residents worried about the strain these massive facilities could place on water supplies, power grids, and their communities. In some cases, that opposition has already helped defeat some proposed data center projects. 'You can't fight it. You have to go with it,' Trump says While some lawmakers have called for a national moratorium on the construction or expansion of new AI data center projects, President Donald Trump's administration has taken a largely hands-off approach to regulating data center construction, arguing that unfettered AI development is important for national security. "You have to convince your communities how great these things are," Trump recently told an audience when discussing data centers. "You can't fight it. You have to go with it." On the local level, severa local governments have already adopted or explored temporary restrictions on new data center development including Seattle, Minneapolis and several communities in New Jersey Last month, New York became the first state in the country to impose a statewide moratorium on data center projects. Even famously pro-business Texas has ordered regulators to audit every large data center project seeking to connect to the state's main power grid. Supporters of these projects often point to the jobs, tax revenue, and other investment these projects can bring to communities. Huddleston, however, remains unconvinced. "I say they're a liar, and the truth isn't in them," Huddleston told WKRC. "That's what I say. It's a scam."

Meet the 82-year-old Kentucky grandma who turned down $26 million to turn her farm into a data center: 'I don't need your money' | Fortune

Ida Huddleston has lived on the same stretch of farmland outside Maysville, Kentucky, since she was 16. She and her late husband built a log home there, raised children, and worked the soil through six decades of marriage. Today, the family owns roughly 1,200 acres, and multiple generations still live on it. Last spring, an unnamed company described only as a major artificial intelligence firm came looking for a piece of it, according to WKRC Local 12. The company approached dozens of landowners in Mason County about buying roughly half of the Huddleston family's property for a proposed data center campus. Huddleston, 82, was offered about $60,000 an acre for her 71 acres, over $4 million. Her daughter, Delsia Bare, 54, was offered $48,000 an acre for her 463 acres, putting her potential payout above $22 million. Combined, the family's offer topped $26 million, well above the roughly $6,000-an-acre going rate for farmland in the county. Bare admits she signed a contract to sell, briefly. Fear was part of it, she said, namely worries over what might happen if the company invoked eminent domain and pressure from developers who wouldn't identify themselves. But the deal didn't sit right, and she and her mother pulled out, Bare told People in an exclusive interview. "Money couldn't move what all I've got put in place here," Huddleston told People. "So I just might as well stay and fight it out right where I'm at." Both women have since become vocal opponents of the project, telling local outlets they don't believe the promised jobs and economic growth will materialize. Huddleston calls the offer a scam. She and Bare point to reports of water shortages and groundwater contamination near data centers elsewhere in the country as reasons to keep the land as it is. "You can't get food out of a data center," Huddleston said in the People interview, "and everything coming out of the data center is going to be poison and destructive." Bare, who has never sold, says her attachment to the property runs deeper than money. "The more money you have, the more problems you have," she told People. "It never went through my mind that this was a Cinderella story. I never wanted to leave my land." The project will go on The family's refusal hasn't stopped the project. The company has instead assembled land from other owners who did agree to sell. A zoning request has been filed to rezone nearly 28 agricultural parcels, more than 2,000 acres total, and the local planning commission has since approved the rezoning, according to Local 12. The data center, if built, would sit next to the Huddleston farm rather than on it. County officials have said the project would bring hundreds of full-time jobs and well over a thousand construction jobs. Huddleston isn't persuaded. "I don't want your money, I don't need your money," she told LEX 18. "But I do feel sorry for everybody around us." The Huddlestons' standoff is one thread in a much larger fight playing out across rural America. Michigan township residents voted down an OpenAI-Oracle data center only to watch construction start weeks later; people are sharing their opposition in angry town halls nationwide against data centers, and the fight has become a cross-partisan political issue in Texas as farmers and ranchers push back against Big Tech's search for cheap land and power.

'They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we're not': Family declines $26 million offer to convert their farmland into an AI data center

AI companies may have the cash to throw around, but some can't be bought so easily. If one thing is true about AI, it's that there's a lot of money in it. Nvidia became the first $5 trillion company because of its role in the explosion of AI data centers, and OpenAI has been rounding up tens of billions in investments. So you'd think AI companies could buy pretty much whatever they want -- but one farming family in Northern Kentucky showed that's not the case by turning down a $26 million bid. As reported by WKRC-TV Local 12, Ida Huddleston was offered the sum for half of her 1,200-acre farmland this year, which an unnamed company would turn into an AI data center. Huddleston's daughter, Delsia Bare, reportedly said she would "stay and hold and feed a nation" and that "$26 million doesn't mean anything." AI data centers have become an ethical and ideological battleground, with Elon Musk's SpaceXAI only this week agreeing to take down 69 temporary methane turbines in Memphis over the next year in reaction to resident concerns over local disruption. In this case, Bare claims there's history to the site that the data center company would be ignoring. She told Local 12, "My grandfather and great-grandfather and a whole bunch of family have all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it." She continues, "[They] even raised wheat through the Depression and kept bread lines up in the United States of America when people didn't have anything else." Bare claims to be among "dozens of landowners" approached by the anonymous buyer, who reportedly represents a major AI company. Notably, Local 12 claims that the land where Bare lives is worth around $6,000 per acre, which makes the offer around ten times the actual value. Huddleston tells Local 12, "They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we're not. We know whenever our food is disappearing, our lands are disappearing, and we don't have any water -- and that poison. Well, we know we've had it." Huddleston is also sceptical of claims of economic growth as a result of the AI data center. "I say they're a liar, and the truth isn't in them. That's what I say. It's a scam." Data center pushback has been a common theme of the growth of AI, with concerns of both an environmental and ethical nature being front and centre. And AI companies have a lot of money to throw around. Even if you own a lot of land, $26 million must be a life-changing amount of money to anyone but the richest of the rich; it would even be enough to buy some of the RAM that AI data centers have been gleefully sucking up over the last few years. Just a thought.

Family turns down $26 million to turn farmland into an AI data center

With an insatiable appetite for all things AI, and the big tech companies pouring over $1 trillion into AI infrastructure, it's no secret that plans for and construction of new data centers are happening at a pace that hasn't been seen before. And with rural areas like Northern Kentucky in the United States among many locations being viewed as new places to build data centers, one family is fighting back. As reported by WKRC-TV Local 12, a local woman and her mother turned down a $26 million offer to sell part of their 1,200 acres of farmland to an unnamed company that wanted to build a data center. According to the report, land in the region typically sells for around $6,000 per acre, which would make the $26 million offer around ten times that amount. When they were told that it would bring jobs and economic growth to the region, the 82-year-old Ida Huddleston called it a scam. In fact, the main reason Ida Huddleston and her daughter Delsia Bare have no interest in turning their family farm into space for another data center is that they want to "stay" and "feed a nation." Adding, "$26 million doesn't mean anything." "My grandfather and great-grandfather and a whole bunch of family have all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it," Delsia Bare said. "Even raised wheat through the Depression and kept bread lines up in the United States of America when people didn't have anything else." This response, alongside statements that a data center could potentially poison the water in the area, reflects current sentiment in various regional and remote locations where new data centers are being built. One family taking a stand isn't going to stop data centers from being built in Northern Kentucky, as the report notes that the "anonymous buyer" representing a major AI company has approached dozens of landowners with similar deals. And with that, a land area measuring 2,000 acres is reportedly being rezoned to accommodate non-agricultural business, aka data centers. Even so, it makes the principled stand from this family all the more impressive, as they want farmland to remain exactly that.