Kentucky woman rejects $26 million offer to turn her farm into a data center
For generations, Ida Huddleston and her family have owned a farm in Northern Kentucky. And they turned down at least one multi-million dollar bid to keep it.
Last year, a “major artificial intelligence company” offered them $26 million to sell part of their company for a proposed data center. according to a recent report from WKRC. Huddleston and her family declined, saying they did not want a data center built near them or on any of their 1,200 acres of farmland outside Maysville, Kentucky.
“They call us old, dumb farmers, you know, but we’re not,” Huddleston, 82, told Local 12 WKRC. “We know when our food disappears, our land disappears, and we run out of water – and that poison. Well, we know we’ve had it,” apparently referring to recent water shortages and soil poisoning that has been widely reported on earth near data centers.
In an interview with the news station, Huddleston said she doubted the data center would bring jobs or economic growth to Mason County. “It’s a scam,” she said.
The company, which WKRC did not name, revised its plans and filed a zoning application to rezone more than 2,000 acres in Northern Kentucky, the report said — meaning the AI company will still be allowed to build its data center next to Huddleston’s land.
