Solar energy development has become a hot-button issue in recent years as Trump officials block funding to solar projects over concerns about losing prime farmland to renewables.
But advocates say this worry — which is often shared by the communities closest to proposed solar projects — could be assuaged by agrivoltaics, which combines solar and farming.
For many years, agrivoltaics have been limited to sheep grazing under solar panels, but a growing number of case studies show almost every type of livestock and crops can be raised successfully using agrivoltaics (with the exception of some tall crops, like corn, that can grow higher than the panels).
Even with federal disinvestments in renewables, the solar industry is expected to be the fastest-growing power generator over the next two years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Gas shortages caused by the United States-Israel war with Iran, which has targeted major oil export hubs in the Mideast, have provided even more reason to find alternative energy sources to oil.
But the vast majority of solar energy is expected to come from farmland, according to the American Farmland Trust. About 83% of new solar developments are currently being installed on farms and ranches. That means solar developers, farmers, and rural neighbors will have to find some sort of middle ground as the need for renewable energy grows.
Agrivoltaics could be that answer. A 2023 study published in Energy Policy showed that large-scale agrivoltaics projects receive less public backlash than large-scale solar projects on farmland. A 2024 survey by the Solar and Storage Industries Institute found that 70% of farmers were open to solar on farmland, if it brought them supplementary income and they could farm around or under the panels.
“Rural Americans want to see rural America continue to look like the community they grew up in,” said David Gahl, executive director of the Solar and Storage Industries Institute, in a Daily Yonder interview. “That’s why I think agrivoltaics shows a lot of promise, because you get the benefits of both having agricultural production continue, and you’re not changing the community character of a place.”
The Institute will be releasing a new survey this fall that polls the neighbors of solar projects about their attitudes toward solar. While the survey has yet to be published, Gahl said it proved neighbors are more amenable to solar if it incorporates farming, and especially if the project is beneficial to the larger community.
“[Their responses] show to me that rural communities want to maintain the character of the places where they live, and we have to figure out ways to do that that make economic sense for all parties,” he said.
Making economic sense for the farmers and solar developers is relatively straightforward. Solar developments usually come to fruition when a developer approaches a farmer with a lease agreement. The developer pays the farmer for the use of their land and takes on the cost of site design and construction materials. Once designed, the developer either hands off the project to a different firm that builds the actual solar panels or they retain the project and build it themselves, selling the power off to a utility or a power grid.
“[Agrivoltaics] is enabling new financial freedom for farmers, and that is what resonates with folks the most, even the biggest anti-solar voices,” said Lucy Bullock-Sieger, co-founder of the Solar & Farming Association, which represents a coalition of different agrivoltaics organizations.
From 2017 to 2024, 160,000 U.S. farms went out of business. Advocates say solar could provide farmers an opportunity to diversify their income source while allowing them to remain in business and maintain a version of the rural farming landscape neighbors are accustomed to seeing.
But making sure the community finds a benefit from the project will also be vital — and could be the most challenging part of implementing widespread agrivoltaics.
Between 2018 and 2023, an estimated 30% of large-scale solar and wind projects were canceled because of community opposition, according to a study from the Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center. By the end of 2024, the study found that 459 counties and municipalities in 44 states had adopted restrictions to renewable energy siting. That’s a 16% increase in local restrictions in just one year.
In a recent Mother Jones article about the debate over solar on farmland, one neighbor against a proposed development in Oregon said “Anything that changes land offends me, if it isn’t farming or wetlands.”
This attitude seems to be shared in other states as well. In 2025, local restrictions on renewable energy siting increased 32% country-wide from 2024. This aligns with the Trump administration’s ongoing disinvestment in renewable energy programs, like the recent cancellation of a new grant cycle for the Rural Energy for America program that provided farmers and rural communities money to install solar panels.
“Some communities are getting fatigued by solar,” said Iain Ward, a cranberry grower who is a tenant farmer under an agrivoltaics array in Massachusetts and has since become an agrivoltaics advocate. He has witnessed communities be approached by projects that did not align with what was historically farmed in the region. Those agrivoltaics projects are what receive the most backlash.
“When we’re talking about solar projects being on farmland, tailoring the project and its spacing to what crops have historically been produced and engaging with the farmer to continue producing them under the array can change that,” Ward said. “The community is more likely to say, ‘Oh, you are actually listening to us, you are actually respecting our community, our heritage, and the agricultural infrastructure we have.’”
While the federal disinvestment in renewables and negative attitudes toward solar have certainly slowed progress, solar advocates say it’s unlikely it will totally stop them.
“With the level of interest and number of farmers and solar developers who are experimenting on their own already, we’re going to see continued innovation in the agrivoltaic space,” said Gahl of the Solar and Storage Industries Institute.
“Without support from the executive branch, you’re still going to see innovation, you’re just not going to see it move as quickly.”
The post Finding Middle Ground in the Solar Debate with Agrivoltaics appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
