“They Call Us ‘Old Stupid Farmers’ … But We’re Not,” Says Family Matriarch
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is on the rise, with businesses and individuals using tools that incorporate AI on a daily basis.
While the use of AI is largely in the digital world online, the generative elements of AI require an immense amount of energy that sees the creation of significant real-world infrastructure.
Rural areas have become popular sites for companies that generate AI’s results to establish data centers.
However, one family of Kentucky farmers says they shot down a hefty offer from an AI company, and they’re not looking back.
Ida Huddleston and her daughter, Delsia Bare, have poured their lives into continuing their family’s farming legacy in Maysville, Kentucky, and that has recently meant rejecting a $26 million offer from an anonymous AI company.
Speaking with Local 12 out of neighboring Cincinnati, Ohio, the mother-daughter duo addressed the subject of this attempt to acquire half of their 1,200-acre property.
“If it’s my way, I’ll stay at home and feed a nation,” Delsia said. “$26 million doesn’t mean anything.”
Expounding upon her attachment to her family’s land, Delsia said, “My grandfather and great-grandfather, and a whole bunch of family, has all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it — even raised wheat through the Depression and kept bread lines up in the United States of America when people didn’t have anything else.”
Ida, who is 82, didn’t hold back when discussing how she believes tech companies view people like her, saying, “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.”
The arrival of data centers in a community often means new tech jobs, as well as local investments, but that’s of no interest to this farming family.
“I say they’re a liar, and the truth ain’t in them,” Ida said, adding, “That’s what I say. It’s a scam.”
Comparing herself to Scarlett O’Hara, the protagonist in Gone With The Wind (1939), Delsia said, “As long as [Scarlett] was attached to that land, her spirit never would die. That’s the exact same thing for me, right here. 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.”
Rezoning efforts are reportedly underway at neighboring farm properties, which may mean that the proposed data center may find its way next door to Delsia and Ida, but it remains to be seen how community officials will respond to these requests.
Watch the Local 12 News segment on how Ida Huddleston and Delsia Bare rejected the $26 million offer from an AI company seeking their property, here:
Revisit the scene Delsia is referring to from Victor Fleming’s Gone With The Wind (1939), during which Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) declares, “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again,“ here:
