Kentucky mother rejects $26 million offer for AI data center on her farmland; ‘they’re liars…’

A mother and daughter in Northern Kentucky have turned down a $26 million offer for part of their farmland, refusing to let it be converted into a data center an unnamed AI company.A Kentucky family rejects a $26 million offer to protect their generations old land. (Representative image/ Unsplash)The offer they said no toAccording to Local12, Ida Huddleston and her family own about 1,200 acres of farmland outside Maysville in Kentucky. Last April, an unnamed company approached them about buying roughly half the property for a proposed data center.Land in Mason County is typically valued at around $6,000 per acre. The offer the family received was roughly ten times that amount but they still said no.Huddleston who is 82 years old made her position clear.”I say they’re a liar, and the truth isn’t in them,” she said, referring to claims the project would bring jobs and economic growth. “That’s what I say. It’s a scam.”For Huddleston’s daughter, Delsia Bare the decision was never really about the money.”Stay and hold and feed a nation,” Bare said. “$26 million doesn’t mean anything.”According to Local12, Bare also explained that her family’s connection to the land goes back several generations, long before any tech company came knocking.”My grandfather and great-grandfather and a whole bunch of family have all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it,” she said. “Even raised wheat through the Depression and kept bread lines up in the United States of America when people didn’t have anything else.”Despite the large amount of money, the family remains firm in their decision.“They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not,” Huddleston said. “We know whenever our food is disappearing, our lands are disappearing, and we don’t have any water and that poison. Well, we know we’ve had it.”Bare also said her attachment to the land is something that cannot be measured in dollars. She compared her feelings to the iconic character Scarlett O’Hara from ‘Gone With the Wind’.”As she was attached to that land,” Bare said.“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,” she added.The Joint Planning Commission is scheduled to hold public meetings on March 25 and 26 at 5:30pm at the Maysville Community and Technical College Fields Auditorium to discuss this problem. However, the answer of he Huddleston family remains the same that no amount of money will change their minds.