For generations, Ida Huddleston and her family have owned a farm in Northern Kentucky. And he has turned down an offer of at least a million dollars to preserve it.
Last year, a “major artificial intelligence company” offered him $26 million to sell part of his farm for a proposed data center, According to a recent report by WKRC. Huddleston and his family declined, saying they did not want a data center built near them or on their 1,200-acre farm outside Maysville, Kentucky.
“They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not,” Huddleston, 82, told local 12 WKRC. “We know that all the time our food is disappearing, our lands are disappearing, and we have no water – and that’s poison. Well, we know we have that,” apparently referring to recent Water shortage and soil poisoning he is done widely reported in the ground near data centers.
In an interview with the news station, Huddleston said he doubted the data center would bring jobs or economic development to Mason County. “It’s a scam,” she said.
According to the report, the company, which WKRC did not name, revised its plans and filed a zoning request to rezone more than 2,000 acres in Northern Kentucky — meaning the AI firm could still build its data center next to Huddleston’s land.
