Family turns down $26million offer from Fortune 100 company for 'priceless' farm land

It's no secret that AI is taking over and despite our best efforts, there's really not all that much that we can do about it.

But one family is doing everything they can to resist the rise of Artificial Intelligence, by standing their ground over in Kentucky, USA.

While AI has weaselled its way into most leading industries and into everyday life for many people, but The Huddleston family are refusing to bow down to the increased influence of technology.

They have worked on their 1,200-acre plot of land in Mason County, Kentucky, for generations, running a farm for years which has withstood the tests of time.

Not only have they have raised cattle which ends up in the bellies of Americans across the region, the family worked through the Great Depression to feed local residents.

Now though, a Fortune 100 company have offered an eye-watering amount of money to change the landscape of the region completely.

According to Delsia Bare, a company approached her family and offered $26 million (£19.56 million) for roughly 900 acres of their land to build a huge data centre campus, just outside the city of Maysville.

Speaking to Live 5 WCSC, Delsia said: "The heartbreak that it [the land] could be gone is the first thing I feel. Literally a pain in the chest right there where the heart’s at."

Her mother, Ida Huddleston, added: "I said, ‘No, mine is priceless.’ What I’ve got here, I want to pass it down. What God told me to do was to keep it until I was through with it and then pass it on to the next generation."

The full project will ultimately rezone 28 properties and total 2,000 acres altogether.

Matt Wallingford, the Maysville City Manager, said that the impact of the company looking to buy the land would be massive for the area.

Claiming that it would bring about over 1,000 construction jobs over eight to 10 years and 100 full-time positions averaging $100,000 per year, he described it as 'a big deal'.

Wallingford said that a state tariff means that the company would have to fund a second power plant, at no cost to taxpayers.

The Huddleston family don't care about the money though, as they are more concerned about the effects on water systems, as well as overloading the power grid and destroying fertile land.

"They call us all stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not. We know when our food is disappearing, our land is disappearing," the family said.

The City manager went on: “I would agree with that, but it doesn’t mean that the buildings can’t be reutilized with that infrastructure there.

“Our industrial authority would be recruiting a new business to come in, so I think that land will be valuable whether that data centre is there.”

Ida explained that her late husband built her home on the land, and she wants to die in it, adding: “He’s here all the time right with me and tells me what I’m going to have to do with the farm the next day and the next day, just like he would like it to be. He was something else.”

The family intends to keep fighting the ultra-rich company to keep their land.

Maybe there is some humanity left after all.