Dispelling the “Prime Farmland” Myth: Solar + Sheep
The sheep are officially back to their spring and summer stomping grounds: they were trucked up to the first solar farm of the season and are happily getting to work on their full-time job of keeping the grass mowed.
Some good news: solar grazing (which is what we’re doing here) has exploded in popularity over the last few years in the United States. It’s what inspired me to write my book, “Agri-Energy: Growing Power, Growing Food” (which I’ll hopefully have a release date for soon, so stay tuned!) and it’s what’s helped us grow our business exponentially of late.
Even though agri-energy and solar grazing truly allow for the best of both worlds to occur (energy + food production, all on the same site) there are still a lot of myths floating around, many of which are harmful to both the renewable energy industry as well as the individual farmer.
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Dispelling the Myth of Prime Farmland
First, there’s the argument that installing solar panels “destroys prime farmland.” This is an interesting one, since there’s no clear definition of what prime farmland actually is. The USDA defines it as “land that has the best combination of physical and chemical characteristics for producing food, feed, forage, fiber, and oilseed crops and is available for these uses.”
But that’s about it. The average Joe isn’t going around testing soil for maximum fertility. Nobody is measuring yields. While you can certainly get a measure of how fertile agricultural land is by taking into stock these variables, you can’t determine whether land is “prime farmland” just by looking at it.
So to those who attend public hearings in opposition of solar because you’re concerned it’s taking up prime farmland, it’s time to take a pause. Unless you have a soil test in hand, you’re not armed with the right (if any) information. Just because a field is green and currently being used to grow things, that doesn’t make it “prime” in the slightest.
Now, here’s where it gets even more interesting.
Moving Into the Future
Prime farmland in 2025 is going to look a lot different than it did 25, 50, 100 years ago, and a lot of that has to do with how we’ve treated our land over the last few decades.
Conventional agriculture, which tends to involve planting one type of crop (such as corn, soy, or wheat) repeatedly, perhaps with rotations of cover crops between seasons or years. It also tends to involve the heavy use of agrochemicals like pesticides and fertilizers.
The Midwest is losing topsoil at a rate of 1.9 millimeters per year (about a grain of rice in thickness). On average, we lose a pound of topsoil for every bushel of corn that’s produced.
This is problematic, because it’s challenging to grow crops without topsoil and it takes time to replenish it. Subsoil, directly beneath the topsoil, lacks the nourishing qualities of topsoil.
Many farms have now adopted no-till systems, which help in that it reduces the amount of topsoil that’s eroded as a result of tilling, but problematic in that it tends to rely more heavily on agrochemicals.
So what’s the solution?
It’s time we embrace a solution that leans into the needs of the future while also relying on the ancient methods of the past.
Installing solar panels does not, at face value, help with the loss of topsoil issue. In fact, the very process of installing solar to a plot of land necessitates some destruction. The solution comes in what happens after the solar farm is up and running.
The Role of Managed Intensive Rotational Grazing
Managed intensive rotational grazing is something farmers have done intuitively for centuries, but has only recently come back into style. It requires farmers to move their animals frequently, keeping an eye on pasture regrowth (when done incorrectly, rotational grazing can actually worsen erosion and soil degradation).
But when done right, rotational grazing allows for better water absorption and plants that come back healthier after being grazed. They have stronger root systems and can uptake nutrients more efficiently. It also creates new topsoil.
When you graze animals at a high density in a small area for a short period of time, the animals eat everything, not just picking around to find their most favorite snacky-snacks, so the weeds don’t have the chance to take hold. As the animals (usually sheep) eat, they poop, with their manure packed into the soil. This fertilizes the plants so, again, they come back stronger, and it helps create more topsoil over time.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: you don’t need solar panels to create this effect. And that’s correct. Managed intensive rotational grazing has benefits no matter where it occurs.
However, the one-two punch in this system comes from the fact that you’re producing food (the sheep or whatever else is being raised beneath the panels) AND producing energy.
You simply cannot do this with other forms of energy production. As far as I’m aware, there is no system in which sheep grazing and coal mining coexist (or anything else of that nature).
Time to Say Goodbye to Corn
I’ve written about this before, so I won’t beat that old drum to death. However, corn farming (the number one subsidy crop in the US) is land-intensive, water-intensive, and fossil-fuel intensive. The bitter irony of growing corn for fuel (ethanol) is that it isn’t actually that efficient. If the country were to transition 40 million acres of ethanol fuel to solar, it could meet 100% of its electricity needs while powering a nationwide fleet of electric vehicles.
Solar produces 200 times more energy per acre than corn. And since corn isn’t that efficient as a biofuel, emitting 24% more emissions than gasoline, we’re really talking about an obvious tradeoff here.
Discard the Status Quo
So why are we so grudging to switch to dual-use systems (such as sheep grazing beneath solar panels) and away from fossil fuels?
Again: fear of the unknown. Lack of information. The dreaded status quo.
We like looking out and seeing vast fields of corn, their silk dancing in the breeze. We don’t like looking out at ugly gray solar panels, glaring in the midsummer sun.
But what we don’t like?
To name a few: rising energy prices (raise your hand if your energy bills have spiked in the last few months, a la NYSEG, even before the tariffs set in?), eroded topsoil that washes into waterways and clogs rivers and pollutes fish, and farmers who can’t afford to feed their own families while working around the clock to feed everybody else.
We need to abandon our notions of “this is how it’s always been done.” Prime farmland in 2025 will likely look a lot different than it did in 1825. That’s okay. We weren’t walking around with energy-hungry cellphones and smart TVs in 1825, either.
It’s time for a food and energy revolution, and we’re proud to be part of that…one grazing Katahdin at a time.
Want to learn more about raising sheep? Check out these featured articles!
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