People fear we’re taking farmland to build solar. They don’t realize that you can have both, according to Charles Gould, a Bioenergy Educator with Michigan State University Extension.
“Agrivoltaics” allow you to have agriculture and solar on the same piece of land. Michigan has a great potential to develop agrivoltaics, especially with sheep. Sheep do a better job of maintaining the vegetation under solar arrays than machines. The United States imports 75% of its lamb meat, but less than half of Michigan’s meat processing capabilities for lamb is being used.
Agrivoltaics offers a fantastic opportunity to help preserve farmland by stabilizing farmers’ income so they do not face bankruptcy and sell their farmland off to developers.