A group calling itself Heartland Farmers is conducting a campaign against the Ceres Project wind farm proposed for Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. Their opposition is mainly based on the claim that “If turbines are erected on farms in Central Yorke Peninsula, farm yields will drop considerably at the expense of energy production.” (Extracted from HF “The Problem With Ceres” page, 2013/04/08).
Note that the farmers who will be hosting the turbines are not the ones who are complaining, it is their neighbours.
Heartland Farmers go on to say “Many crops, such as canola, can only be sprayed by air, as they grow too tall for ground rigs to drive over without doing damage.” On a page I have written about HF I have a photo showing a spraying rig on a crop of flowering canola demonstrating the fallacy of this claim.
The groups claims “every paddock within the proposed development, and any paddock that is even partially within 3km of a turbine will no longer have aerial applications available as a tool for that farmer.” Agricultural aircraft such as the one shown in the photo operate close to power poles, thin power lines stretching hundreds of metres between poles, radio and TV aerials, trees and other obstacles all the time, yet HF would have people believe that even if a small part of a paddock is within 3km of a big, highly conspicuous, wind turbine, an agricultural aircraft will not be able to spray even a part of that paddock! This statement is quite beyond belief. (Note that so far as I have been able to find out, no aircraft anywhere in the world has ever crashed due to a wind turbine.)
The Heartland Farmers also claim “…most people on the Peninsula will hear [the wind turbines]”. (Yorke Peninsula is about 170km long.) I have visited many wind farms on many occasions and have never heard a turbine from a distance greater than 2.5km; and then only in near ideal conditions.
Heartland Farmers make many more unbelievable and unsubstantiated claims, several of which I have listed, and countered, on my Net page.
As can be imagined, there have been emails between Heartland Farmers and I, and postings on other websites (including Stop These Things) about my criticism of HF’s claims. To date, the group have not provided any rational arguments or evidence supporting their claims and disputing mine, they have only produced ad hominem attacks on my credibility.
I have corresponded with several groups who oppose wind farms over the years, but I believe that this group will go further than any other to get their own way.
yes2renewables.org 
I wonder if Heartland Farmers have any links with the Heartland Institute – a US entity which actively campaigns against action on climate change.
Yes, interesting John. I was not aware of the Heartland Institute, but they do seem to have similar delusions to the Heartland Farmers. On 2013/04/21 a person who calls herself The Callous Wind and is closely aligned with the HF said in a comment left elsewhere on this site “I’m not even going to start on Climate change Mr. Clarke, for every argument promoting it, there is an argument denying it, even the scientists can’t agree.” Of course this is quite false, there is an almost 100% consensus among climate scientists that climate change is happening and is largely caused by the actions of Mankind.
Well that certainly created some interest, pigs arse!
Update:
Heartland Farmers has been successful in delaying the Ceres wind farm to the point that it is no longer viable.
Heartland Farmers will not be intimidated by self appointed ‘wind warriors’ who have no credibility and their only claim to fame, is to insult and abuse good, hard working country people, on the internet.
In this person’s case the repercussions have been quite dramatic and he is now known, world wide, as a complete nut case.
TCW.