The Future of Farming in NY Part 2: Solar Grazing and the Potential for a New Industry

NEW YORK(WENY)-- New jobs are opening up in the Finger Lakes region but to get hired in agrivoltaics you would have to be a sheep, literally. 

With solar arrays being installed throughout New York State many have expressed concern over the loss of agricultural land. Thanks to a collaboration between the American Solar Grazing Association and Cornell University, solar grazing aims to bring both farmers and solar companies together. That's where Lexi Hain, local sheep farmer and the executive director of the American Solar Grazing Association comes in. 

“I heard about solar grazing happening in Europe and North Carolina, I flew to North Carolina, talked to some farmers there at some solar farms and thought, this seems to work ,” said Hain. “I knew that New York was supposed to get a bunch of solar so at that point I had actually purchased a local flock of sheep with the intent to get them a job.” 

Hain’s sheep have been hard at work for some time now but even if Hain’s sheep wanted to, they wouldn't be able to keep all of the grass in the Empire state trimmed. Through New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act , the state aims to have six gigawatts of solar energy by the year 2025 which would require between 30,000 to 42,000 acres of land, land that could be managed by local shepherds and Todd Schmidt, Cornell Economics professor has a plan. 

“What we are doing, it is a three year project, the first year we are working with developers on terms of what their grazing demands are and perhaps with sheep farmers that want to shift their grazing to solar fields,” said Schmidt. 

The United States Department of Agriculture rewarded New York $500,000 for this project and Schmidt said through this project, the idea is to have a cooperative that owns equipment that can relocate flocks of sheep, set up fencing and shepherd the sheep. 

“Through an entity we gain efficiencies that farmers may not even have the skills or the capacity,” said Schmidt. 

As was reported in the first piece, if agricultural land was not considered during New York’s installation process, 80% of New York’s farm land could be taken up by solar arrays. In the year of 2020, New York brought in around $5.3 Billion from agriculture, a number that would significantly drop if agriculture was not considered during the installation process. 

Schmidt said ‘Electric Sheep’ has more potential than you would think, as this project has the potential to create a new meat industry in the state. 

“ So I think there is a real opportunity for growth in the industry and at the same time if we are producing more local meat products, we can reduce our reliance on importing lamb from Australia and New Zealand,” said Schmidt. 

It is projected that 390 million pounds of lamb alone will be imported in the year 2022 and as of 2022 the sheep industry only makes up 1% of total U.S. livestock so there is plenty of potential for growth. 

So are we a big sheep producing nation? Not especially, do we have the potential and resources sure, do we have to get organized, yes,” said Hain. 

Despite the upsides that come with solar grazing, the climate goals of the CLCPA still has the potential to negatively impact agriculture, but Schmidt said that's not something that is being ignored or overlooked. 

“It does not solve the conflict between renewable energy production and farmland, that's going to exist and we need to talk through it and it's important but it's at least a way to say can we do some agriculture on this land that we couldn't do before,” said Schmidt.