Solar panels spread as farmers hedge bets
For Stuart Woolf, who grows wine grapes, almonds and other specialty crops in California, solar power is a necessary compromise as farming gets more challenging.
Woolf, who has 1,200 acres of panels on his farm in the state’s Central Valley, says individual growers like him are turning to solar to survive. He began leasing land to solar developers about a decade ago, an arrangement that provides him with a much-needed new profit stream.
“We would prefer not to have any solar, but if we don’t have it, we won’t have the ability to keep this farm going,” he said.
Farmers are increasingly embracing solar as a hedge against volatile crop prices and rising expenses. Their incomes are heading for a 26% slide this year, as cash receipts for corn, soy and sugar cane are expected to drop by double-digit percentages.
The shift is a big part of the renewables push in the U.S.: The American Farmland Trust estimates 83% of expected future solar development will take place on agricultural soil.
“Solar developers are looking for larger parcels of flatter land, and agricultural land often features those characteristics,” said Sean Gallagher, senior vice president of policy for Washington, D.C.-based trade group Solar Energy Industries Association. In return, farmers get more stable revenue over the long term — and it can be above what they earn from crops, he said.
The movement is certain to get a kick from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which has helped accelerate the clean energy boom through tax incentives for solar developers. The country’s five largest agricultural states are among the biggest beneficiaries, poised to receive $155 billion in clean power investments by 2030.
The act attracted more than $110 billion in clean energy investments in the first year after it was signed in August 2022, with more than $10 billion funneled toward solar manufacturing. More than 116,000 farms had solar panels in 2022, a 30% jump from five years prior, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture census released last month.
Yet solar makes up a small share of overall U.S. farmland. Having solar account for as much as 40% of U.S. electricity would require about 5.7 million acres, the Department of Energy estimates. That is less than 1% of America’s 880 million acres of farmland.