Rebekah Pierce, farmer and author of “Agri-Energy: Growing Power, Growing Food” discusses her work.

Can you give a basic definition of agri-energy? 

The simplest definition is that it is any system that combines agriculture and renewable energy. While the terms “dual-use,” “agrivoltaics,” “agri-PV” and “solar grazing” are commonly used for agriculture occurring on solar installations, I wanted a term that applied more broadly to other energy and agricultural systems (for example, farming under wind, or even things like on-farm energy generation and biomass). 

Big hurdles exist for both renewable energy and sustainable farming. What challenges top the list and how can these seemingly disparate activities benefit each other?  

We’re at a tipping point both for renewable energy and agriculture at large. The average age of the American farmer is 58; very few young Americans are pursuing farming as a career path because land is exorbitantly expensive and sustainable farming, in particular, is not something that’s popularly viewed as being either scalable or profitable. Our farms are being rapidly consolidated—we have a third of the farms we did 100 years ago—and while small farms are disappearing, large ones are getting larger. Our food systems have become more consolidated. Food production is becoming more outsourced, something that doesn’t bode well for our land, our people or our economy, especially when you think about long-term sustainability of any of those three. 

A similar problem exists in the renewable energy world. We’re running out of land and other resources, and we need to get smarter about how we’re using the land we do have. We need to make sure that communities are given the opportunity to produce power locally, in a way that directly benefits local energy independence, in the same way that we need to foster a greater sense of local food independence. This is why I’m so excited about agri-energy: by combining food and energy production in one space, and allowing local farmers and communities to benefit, we can strengthen the resilience of both industries as well as that of individual neighborhoods and towns.

Why is there opposition to agri-energy projects? Do you think these concerns are legitimate? 

Generally, the opposition I see to agri-energy has to do with a) a lack of understanding about how these systems work and the full breadth of opportunities available to us and b) worries about long-term impacts and a desire to see more research before moving forward.

A big piece of pushback I hear is that these systems work well only with sheep, and that sheep aren’t a panacea to saving American farmers. I agree with the latter; a healthy agricultural economy needs to be diverse. However, in the short decade or so since agri-energy practices really started to scale up in the United States, we’ve seen remarkable innovation. When I first started writing this book two years ago, cattle on solar were very much viewed as a “eh, maybe, but it will be risky, and it will be expensive, and it probably can’t be done at scale.” Now, it’s growing rapidly and there’s even a name for it: cattlevoltaics. In the book, I profile growers and developers who are successfully (and at scale) growing just about any crop or species you can think of, including pork, poultry, rabbits, honey,  wheat, hay, barley, cranberries, tomatoes, brassicas, garlic, vanilla…the list goes on and it’s expanding by the day. 

It’s true that sheep are considered “the plug and play” for solar, as they work well on the vast majority of existing solar sites in the United States. Other systems, like cattle, do take more forethought and may incur more expense. The same applies to the issue of yields: you may see a slightly reduced yield of, say, your hay crop if you’re farming it on solar. But we don’t have a food production problem in this country; we have a food distribution problem. 

We’re already growing more food than we need (there’s also a significant argument about a large percentage of our farmland being used for non-food export crops, such as ethanol corn, but that’s another can of worms). We need to focus on how to make farming more profitable and the food more accessible and affordable for consumers, and that’s what agri-energy offers. Who cares if your yield of one crop is reduced if you’re able to receive three times as much income per acre, with half the expense, by farming around or under renewables?

As for research, there’s plenty that exists, and while more is always good, we also need to compare apples to apples. If we’re talking about safety issues, let’s also stack up how the research on solar compares to that of fossil fuels. We need to make sure we’re not wasting valuable time by ignoring the quality research that’s already been done. 

As a farmer who practices regenerative agriculture and solar grazing, what has your personal experience been like? What have been your challenges and successes?

We started solar grazing in 2022, more or less to make our farm financially viable. As first-generation farmers, land access was a major problem for us. We wanted to expand our farm and give our animals more access to land for rotational grazing, and also didn’t feel comfortable asking other farmers to lease land to us for less than what we knew it was worth. When we first started, we weren’t really aware of the full and varied benefits of solar grazing. As a result, it was hard for us even to communicate the value beyond basic dollars and cents. Now that we know everything that goes into a successful relationship between the farmer and developer, it’s much easier. We have several other sites we’re grazing now, spread out among four counties in upstate New York. 

I think communication with stakeholders is always a challenge, and by that, I mean both developers, investment groups, operations and maintenance teams and even community members. Everybody has different concerns and priorities, and so we work hard to make sure we’re listening to what those are and adopting our approach as needed. There’s also a learning curve to grazing sheep on solar. Many people assume that it’s just a matter of dropping off a few ewes in the spring and coming back to get them a few months later, but there are a lot of logistics that go into it. You need to (at least somewhat) know what you’re doing with your chosen crop (for us, sheep) before you expand to renewables, because that presents an additional set of logistics to consider. 

What would you say to another farmer who is hesitant about agri-energy?

Get on a renewable energy project (like a solar site) that’s incorporating agriculture and see what it’s like. Chances are, it’s nothing like you expected. We’ve hosted visits in the past and people are always shocked, whether that’s to see “the panels don’t actually leach anything!” or because the animals and vegetation are far healthier than they expected. 

I’d also say, even outside of environmental benefits, these systems are providing massive economic benefit to the people who need it most. Farming communities are some of the poorest in our country but farming is an industry we literally cannot live without. These systems present a financial lifeline to farmers who are getting out of agriculture (lease rates hover around $1000 an acre, often higher) while removing countless barriers of entry for new farmers. 

We’re very concerned about eating up “prime farmland” with solar and wind, but ask yourself this: is it prime farmland if nobody can afford, or is willing, to farm it?  Renewable energy just might be the single best farmland preservation plan in the country, because unlike things like Dollar Generals or housing developments, they have decommissioning plans. There are plans for how the land will be returned to its original state once the energy generation is no longer occurring. While it would be great to see farms operating as they did in 1910, where families could support themselves off the land and then pass that land down to their children to continue to be farmed, the reality is that we don’t live in that world anymore, and we need to adopt solutions that support local food and energy independence. 

What are the barriers to wide-scale adoption of agri-energy, and how can those barriers be overcome?

Developers tend to get very concerned that agri-energy will dramatically increase their costs, whether that’s in installing irrigation systems for crop production or elevating panels for cattle. There ARE additional costs associated with these systems, but very seldom are they as prohibitive as people fear. And with the many benefits agri-energy systems present, I truly do think it’s a wise investment in the longevity of an industry that we want to be around for a very, very long time. While I respect that we need to make smart business decisions and cost is most definitely a factor, we need to think beyond the balance sheets.

Farmers tend to be worried that the land will not be as high a quality (or as high yielding) as it may have been prior to solar. Again, that’s not wrong—there likely will be a reduction in yields. But view it for the sum of the whole, rather than the individual parts. As I said before, do you care if the yields of hay are reduced if you’re now making ten times the amount you used to per acre?

I will never say that these systems are perfect, or that they don’t have very real challenges that need to be addressed. But it’s important to view them as just that: systems. In doing so, the full value can be recognized and we can mitigate many of the concerns about the individual pieces (like cost).

How is current U.S. policy affecting the growth of agri-energy? What kinds of national or local/regional policies do you think would be most beneficial?

Some states are seeing a rapid adoption of renewables (and consequently, agri-energy), while others are trickling off as federal support wanes. Across the board, we are seeing projects becoming more expensive to develop and, unfortunately, agri-energy does sometimes get cut from the chopping block in an attempt to tighten budgets and hasten timelines. 

With that said, I think some of these challenges will truly separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, in that companies who demonstrate a commitment to whole-community systems, including developing projects with agri-energy in mind, will be the ones who weather this storm most successfully. I also think the ability of the industry to thrive even with minimal federal support will allow it to shine as it’s already proving it can be successful on its own. 

From a policy standpoint, I’m always hesitant to introduce more regulations to two industries that, individually, are already heavily regulated. In New York, there’s been a lot of chatter about what the definition of agrivoltaics should be. That’s an important conversation to have, because we need to make sure sites that are “agrivoltaic” sites truly are; planting four heads of broccoli and calling it “agrivoltaics” really isn’t enough, and we need to be cautious of greenwashing either intentionally or accidentally. 

Rather than introducing more regulation, I suggest more incentivization. Several states  have robust incentive programs for agri-energy in place already. The goal here is to encourage developers to do the right thing and incorporate agriculture, but not to hamstring farmers by saying they can only produce one type of crop or that a site has to be agrivoltaics, even if it’s not practical or suitable. 

The best thing we can do right now is keep the dialogue going. Everybody wants what’s best for their families and communities, and the way we can provide for that is to talk about what these systems offer at a local, individual level. Agri-energy is the future, and I’m excited to be part of the transformation as more and more people lean into it.

“Agri-Energy: Growing Power, Growing Food” by Rebekah Pierce is available at islandpress.org.