COLUMBUS, OHIO (RFD NEWS) — The rapid expansion of data centers across Ohio is drawing increased attention from agricultural groups as rural communities weigh both the economic opportunities and resource pressures tied to development.
Evan Callicoat with the Ohio Farm Bureau joined us on Friday’s Market Day Report to discuss how quickly data center growth is occurring in the state and what that expansion means for farmers and rural residents.
In his interview with RFD News, Callicoat outlined the current pace of development and the uncertainty surrounding exact facility counts, noting that Ohio now ranks among the leading states for data center concentration.
According to Callicoat, data center development has been swift in Ohio, which recently ranked fifth in the country with between 200 and 250 sites across the state.
“Honestly, that concerns our members the most, and as you kind of covered at first, transparency there as well,” Callicoat told RFD News. “If we’re going to be locating these here, we want to make sure we know what is coming to our local communities. It’s having an impact across the state. No matter where you live in Ohio, you are having data center conversations in your local community.”
He also addressed specific concerns among producers regarding land use, water demand, and electricity needs as more projects move into rural areas.
“I think there are a few different concerns that our members have,” he continued. “Land use — the amount of land that’s being taken for these projects. Water use has really ramped up in the last couple of weeks, especially talking about water quality concerns and water quantity. That’s not really a conversation we’ve had in Ohio before. Electricity demand and prices are also a concern. A lot of these things take a lot of power. We want to make sure they’re not straining the grid and causing higher prices for our members as well. And definitely coming across the headlines in the last couple of weeks is the tax impact. They’ve been receiving about $2 billion in sales tax exemptions, and that is a lot over the projections that they had. That was something we were concerned about, and we were glad to see that it was paused for now.”
In addition, Callicoat discussed the state’s recent decision to pause consideration of new data center tax exemption requests and the broader balance between economic development opportunities and resource pressures tied to continued growth.
“This tax exemption on data centers was on the sales tax for materials used to build them. When it was first created around 2013, projections were maybe tens of millions of dollars,” he said. “But we saw that just in 2024 and 2025 alone, there was over $2 billion in exemptions that we did not previously know they were receiving. So the legislature has been studying the issue and decided to pause any new requests at this time as they continue that review.”
Finally, Callicoat reflected on the role Ohio Farm Bureau members played in raising awareness of the issue among state lawmakers and officials.
“We really believe this came from the impact of our members making their voices heard — thousands of members contacted legislators and the governor’s office,” he explained. “It really shows the power of a grassroots organization when members make their voices heard. It can have a statewide impact.”
