How much farmers get paid for wind turbines in Iowa
How much farmers get paid for wind turbines in Iowa now adds up to 100.4 million dollars a year statewide. Wind, solar and battery storage projects pay that total to farmers, ranchers and other landowners who host the equipment, a lease payment a developer makes for using their land, according to the American Clean Power Association, a national trade group for the clean energy industry, source 1. The same fact sheet counts 84.4 million dollars a year in property, state and local tax paid by the same Iowa clean power projects, a separate stream of money that goes to governments, not landowners. Iowa now hosts 14,479 megawatts of operating wind, solar and storage capacity, 5th most of any state, generating 59.92% of all Iowa electricity, the highest share of any state.
The MidAmerican figure is 1 utility own 2025 wind lease and easement payments, source 2. The 2 statewide figures cover wind, solar and storage, every developer, from the 2026 dated industry fact sheet, source 1.
Show the numbers
| MidAmerican wind leases | 60 |
| Statewide lease payments | 100.4 |
| Statewide tax paid | 84.4 |
One company pays more than half the total
MidAmerican Energy, a single utility, alone paid Iowa landowners 60 million dollars in 2025 for wind leases and easements, reaching more than 4,000 property owners across the state, according to the company own landowner page, source 2. Dividing that company figure into the statewide total, a calculation this site made rather than a figure either the company or the trade group publishes, shows MidAmerican alone accounts for about 60% of the statewide lease total, leaving roughly 40 million dollars a year for every other wind project plus all of Iowa solar combined. That remaining share sits close to the 4.3 million dollars a year Clean Grid Alliance, a regional trade group, says Iowa solar leases alone pay landowners, a figure roughly 2 years older than the statewide total and not added to it here.
Why the payments matter to one farmer
Evie Haupt hosted 3 wind turbines named after her children on her 160 acre farm in Grundy County, for MidAmerican own Wellsburg wind project, in a company published interview before her death in May 2026. Clean Grid Alliance says solar leases pay a farmer 11,068 dollars an acre a year in production value, compared with 930 dollars an acre a year for corn on the same land, source 5, a solar acre earning roughly 12 times what a corn acre earns the landowner hosting it, a ratio this site calculated from those 2 figures, not one Clean Grid Alliance states.
As a farmer, you don't have a 401(k).
Evie Haupt, farmer who hosted 3 turbines on her Grundy County farm for MidAmerican own Wellsburg wind project. Source 3.
Both figures are Clean Grid Alliance own production value estimates for hosting each use on the same acre.
Show the numbers
| Solar production value | 11,068 |
| Corn production value | 930 |
A federal funding restriction now shapes what comes next
In August 2025, the United States Department of Agriculture restricted 2 of its own farm lending programs for wind and solar, the Rural Energy for America Program, called REAP, and the Business and Industry loan guarantee program, saying the change protects prime farmland, source 5. REAP is a federal program that helps farmers and rural small businesses pay for renewable energy and efficiency projects with grants and loan guarantees. Narrowing it means fewer new wind and solar projects on farmland can use federal financing to get built, even though projects already running keep paying landowners at the rate described above.
Any conversation around protecting farmland should come from thoughtful, balanced input, not blanket restrictions that strip choices from the very people REAP was designed to serve.
Andy Olsen, senior policy advocate, Environmental Law and Policy Center. Source 5.