Veteran singer and American farmland activist Willie Nelson has taken aim at data centres – telling Big Tech to leave his Texan hometown alone.
Posting to his social media accounts, the 93-year-old entertainer said the massive data facilities were "loud", "invading our land" and stealing water.
"I grew up in Abbott, and I still have a home there with farmed land where I can still see stars at night," Nelson said, of the place where he was born that had a population at last count of 352.
"And now our community, like many others, needs to fight against data centres invading our land. The last thing we need is a loud, water thieving, light polluting, data centre anywhere near our town – or any others for that matter."
Nelson has a long history of protesting on behalf of rural workers. He founded Farm Aid in 1985 to hold annual benefit concerts, which he has often headlined, to assist and increase awareness of the importance of family farms.
"The strength of rural America has never come from big industrial footprints," he said in his post this week. "It comes from generations of people, open spaces, local businesses, and a connection to the land. All of America deserves thoughtful stewardship that doesn’t steal farmland – where our essential shared-food is grown – and small family farmers' livelihoods, and not data centres that only destroy the environment around them.
"Whoever controls food and water, controls the masses. Let’s not allow our own demise or give up control over necessary resources in the US and especially in Abbott."
This week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a moratorium on the approval of data centres in response to the growing public backlash to the rapid buildout of data centres across the state. The governor said he wanted regulatory agencies to audit any further proposed centres before they could be connected to the state's electric grid.
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