Mother-daughter farmers reject eye-popping Big Tech bids: ‘I’ll stay … and feed a nation’

A mother and daughter from Kentucky have a simple message for artificial intelligence companies: Go away.

Ida Huddleston and her daughter Delsia Bare say their land has fed the United States for generations, and that isn’t going to change.

‘I’ll stay and hold and feed a nation.’

The quiet family are making headlines over their farmland, which they say has been in their family since the 1860s, after anonymous bidders have made plays to scoop up their property to erect a sprawling data center.

According to Bare, the potential buyers “will not reveal who they are,” telling local Lexington, Kentucky, outlet WLEX that the anonymity of the offer is a huge red flag to her.

The family have been offered $60,000 per acre for Huddleston’s 71 acres and $48,000 per acre for Bare’s 463-acre portion. This puts the total offer at roughly $26 million. WKRC says this is approximately 10 times the going rate for farmland in the area.

Huddleston said she has rejected multiple offers and that she’s not budging.

“What they’ve proposed and have carried on with us is not a business deal; it’s mind harassment,” the 82-year-old told WLEX.

“I said I don’t want your money; I don’t need your money. But I do feel sorry for everybody around us that they’re going to be affected by it.”

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The economic development director for surrounding Maysville-Mason County previously told WLEX that the potential data center would create 400 full-time positions and over 1,500 construction jobs.

“As far as jobs would go, they would become, if not our largest employer, definitely top three,” director Tyler McHugh said.

However, Huddleston disputed the number of potential permanent jobs, saying, “My guess is you won’t have over 50, and they won’t even be there at this building when it’s said and done.”

The narrative surrounding the family’s lineage has remained very consistent throughout news reports, as have Bare’s reasons for refusing to sell.

“I’ll stay and hold and feed a nation,” she told WKRC. She added that for generations her family has “paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it, even raised wheat through the Depression and kept the breadlines up in the United States of America.”

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Data center in Louisville, Kentucky. Tom Uhlman/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Much of the sentiment was the same for Huddleston, who said she recognizes a sinister pattern.

“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 poison: We know we’ve had it.”

Her message to those who claim it will bring jobs: “I say they’re a liar and the truth ain’t in them. … It’s a scam!”

WLEX had previously reported on a different family who turned down offers of nearly $8 million for their land. In December, Andy Grosser and his father, Timothy, said they were also approached about selling their cattle farm to make way for a data center.

“We do not want to sell,” Grosser said. “The farm is my dad’s, and it means everything to him.”

As for Bare, she compared her love for her land to Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind:”

“As long as I’m on this land — as long as it’s feeding me, as long as it’s taking care of me — there’s nothing that can destroy me if I’ve got this land.”

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