The Italian government has issued a new law prohibiting the deployment of large solar power plants on productive agricultural land. The ultimate goal of this law is to avoid the "desertification" of Italian agricultural land. The new regulations do not apply to projects currently in the approval process.

Italian Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida said, "We want to regulate the use of photovoltaic panels, and we believe that land use for production and power generation must be adapted to agricultural production." Lollobrigida stated that solar power plants cannot be installed in agricultural areas.

"We have very favorable tax regulations for agricultural enterprises and agricultural land," he said. "However, if you want to deploy photovoltaic panels on the ground, you change their intended use, so we believe that this practice should not continue." Lollobrigida also pointed out that the new regulations will not involve agricultural power generation facilities.