Solar Grazing: Connecting Farming Communities and Solar Site Operators

As solar expands into agricultural lands, companies are increasingly facing pushback over the loss of farmland to solar sites. Solar grazing offers a way to maintain farmland in agricultural production and build new, positive relationships between farming communities and solar site operators. Because of the potential positive impacts on solar siting, building that relationship between farmers and the solar industry will be important for meeting clean energy climate goals.

Solar grazing and the larger field of agrivoltaics is creating a powerful new vision of combined solar energy and agricultural production. It offers a new pathway for energy development that promotes better land-use practices, creates new ecological benefits, and supports a more sustainable agricultural industry.

FracTracker Alliance’s mission is to map, analyze, and communicate the risks of oil, gas, and petrochemical development to advance just energy alternatives that protect public health, natural resources, and the climate. And agrivoltaics provides a win-win solution to maintaining active agricultural rangelands while adding clean, solar energy to the grid mix. This essential step toward transitioning our energy supply away from fossil fuels to renewables is at the heart of FracTracker’s mission. Says FracTracker’s Karen Edelstein, “We are delighted to be partnering with the American Solar Grazing Association to host this map, and to encourage more sustainable land use while supporting a transition to a clean energy future.”

Learn more about ASGA and the benefits of solar grazing on our website: solargrazing.org. If you’re interested in joining ASGA or supporting our mission, you can do that here: https://solargrazing.org/join/