Solar energy has become a significant topic in my rural Virginia county, where I serve on the Board of Supervisors. During our discussions, the issue of food production has come up a lot. While I understand people’s concerns about maintaining a resilient food supply, they often overlook the amount of farmland that is abandoned and rendered unusable for crop production.
I see it happen all too often, farmer dies, kids don’t want to do anything with the land so it sits growing up becoming unusable. The rate at which farmers are either retiring or passing away far exceeds the rate at which agricultural land is being converted to solar farms. For many farmers, this transition has become a valuable secondary source of income and allowed them to continue or expand their operations.
I feel guilty because the house I grew up in and the house I currently live in were both formerly farmland (cherry orchards and grain fields respectively). I wonder why are we paving over prime farmland while simultaneously dedicating 5% of all US territory to growing field corn. Sorghum, field corn, and cotton are grown around here, depending on market conditions.
Building solar on farmland is genuinely psychotic. Why isn't the play to first cover all urban/suburban and let nature regenerate. If you are going to cover something, cover the deserts in Arizona.
Oooooh, you're one of today's 10,000, and I get to be the person who tells you about Agrivoltaics - combining farming/ranching and solar panels.
You don't completely cover the land in solar panels - you work with the idea that the sun (and resulting shadows from the panels) moves throughout the day, so space them out a bit, and mount them high enough to stay out of the way of the agricultural activity.
I first saw this going on in southern Germany. The cattle were all in the shaded areas, eating the grass that was growing better than in neighboring uncovered fields - this year was really dry here until a few weeks ago.
SoCal (not just SD) really need to get to work on industrial-scale desal, storage, and aqueduct infrastructure to potentially augment ordinarily and sustain the Southwest in times of drought. It's going to happen, they won't be prepared, and it's going to be really, really bad. (This is partially why I moved to around the 100th meridian west.)
Solar energy has become a significant topic in my rural Virginia county, where I serve on the Board of Supervisors. During our discussions, the issue of food production has come up a lot. While I understand people’s concerns about maintaining a resilient food supply, they often overlook the amount of farmland that is abandoned and rendered unusable for crop production.
I see it happen all too often, farmer dies, kids don’t want to do anything with the land so it sits growing up becoming unusable. The rate at which farmers are either retiring or passing away far exceeds the rate at which agricultural land is being converted to solar farms. For many farmers, this transition has become a valuable secondary source of income and allowed them to continue or expand their operations.
I feel guilty because the house I grew up in and the house I currently live in were both formerly farmland (cherry orchards and grain fields respectively). I wonder why are we paving over prime farmland while simultaneously dedicating 5% of all US territory to growing field corn. Sorghum, field corn, and cotton are grown around here, depending on market conditions.
Building solar on farmland is genuinely psychotic. Why isn't the play to first cover all urban/suburban and let nature regenerate. If you are going to cover something, cover the deserts in Arizona.
Oooooh, you're one of today's 10,000, and I get to be the person who tells you about Agrivoltaics - combining farming/ranching and solar panels.
You don't completely cover the land in solar panels - you work with the idea that the sun (and resulting shadows from the panels) moves throughout the day, so space them out a bit, and mount them high enough to stay out of the way of the agricultural activity.
I first saw this going on in southern Germany. The cattle were all in the shaded areas, eating the grass that was growing better than in neighboring uncovered fields - this year was really dry here until a few weeks ago.
To lift that up from anecdata and to provide a link for the GP that you might enjoy:
Solar farm trial shows improved fleece on merino sheep grazed under panels (2022) https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-05-30/solar-farm-graz...
Confirmed multiple times since in several parts of rural Australia.
How did you know that I'm a spinner?! This is definitely something I enjoyed.
Significantly more challenging to install solar onto already developed land.
California is also largely desert itself. Such farming is only possible through unsustainable levels of irrigation.
SoCal (not just SD) really need to get to work on industrial-scale desal, storage, and aqueduct infrastructure to potentially augment ordinarily and sustain the Southwest in times of drought. It's going to happen, they won't be prepared, and it's going to be really, really bad. (This is partially why I moved to around the 100th meridian west.)