January 18th, 2024
By Michael Shulman
AFT Partners with Solar Farm Summit to Sponsor July Event
Multi-year collaboration will build on momentum in the agrivoltaics movement
(Washington, D.C.) American Farmland Trust will be the Title Sponsor for the 2024 Solar Farm Summit, North America’s Agrivoltaics Expo, with a three-year commitment to collaborate in the development of an effective and catalytic annual event focused on solar projects that combine active farming with energy generation—a dual land use known as “agrivoltaics.” Both AFT and SFS hope to build on momentum in the agrivoltaics movement by working together in advancing thought leadership, nurturing healthy market development, promoting robust adoption, and achieving widely distributed benefits to farmers and ranchers, local communities, economies, and the environment.
Entering its second year, the summit is an annual conference, exhibition, and information exchange dedicated to agrivoltaics – a means of keeping land in active agricultural production while also producing renewable power that strengthens local agribusiness, community resilience, and energy independence. The summit—to be held at the Loews Chicago O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont, IL, July 8-10, 2024— will bring together a large and diverse audience of practitioners, stakeholders, and decision-makers.
“The agrivoltaics opportunity is so big and the stakes so high, it’s essential to get everyone at the table and working collaboratively to guide dual-use development down its most constructive pathway,” said Dan French, Executive Producer of the Solar Farm Summit. “So far, the solar boom risks repeating the mistakes of so many great American land rushes before,” he continued, “meeting the needs of acute development demand, but missing bigger opportunities to harvest the whole basket of value-add. We’re honored to partner with AFT in its title role and timely mission to realize the full measure of agrivoltaic benefits empowering farmers and ranchers to bring new solutions to bear on ancient food, water and energy challenges.”
AFT is the only national agricultural organization that approaches its mission of saving the land that sustains us in a comprehensive, holistic manner recognizing the connection between keeping land in farming, helping farmers adopt environmentally-sound farming practices, and working to keep farmers and ranchers on the land. AFT recognizes that well-sited on-the-ground solar projects, combined with objective research and effective advocacy such as through its Smart Solar℠ initiative, can help meet three main, equally important goals: (1) safeguarding land well-suited for farming and ranching, (2) strengthening farm viability, and (3) accelerating solar energy development.
“To achieve the nation’s solar energy production goals, America’s farmers and ranchers and the land they steward will be a critical piece of the puzzle,” said John Piotti, AFT President and Chief Executive Officer. “While we cannot ignore the challenges solar projects can present in farm country as projects trend larger, at AFT, we know that Smart Solar℠ development can provide farmers, ranchers, and landowners with a realistic path to ensuring our nation’s agricultural land is available to the next generation. AFT is proud to be the Title Sponsor of the 2024 Solar Farm Summit and looks forward to a great event in Chicago this summer where the latest agrivoltaic best practices, policy innovations, and technologies will be on full display.”
SFS is the preeminent national gathering of the development community focused on agrivoltaics. With AFT’s support and focus it will continue to grow, while also expanding participation of farmers, agricultural service providers, and public agencies at all levels of government.
Tickets for the event are now available as well as additional sponsorship and exhibition opportunities. For more information, please visit https://solarfarmsummit.com. Limited conference passes for landowners and media are also available.
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American Farmland Trust is the only national organization that takes a holistic approach to agriculture, focusing on the land itself, the agricultural practices used on that land, and the farmers and ranchers who do the work. AFT launched the conservation agriculture movement and continues to raise public awareness through our No Farms, No Food message. Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently protect over 7.8 million acres of agricultural lands, advanced environmentally-sound farming practices on millions of additional acres and supported thousands of farm families.
The Solar Farm Summit is wholly owned and produced by Solar Farm Summit LLC (SFS), a private event production company specializing in solar conferences focused on land use, technical advancement, and broader market development with an organizing social mission to catalyze cross-disciplinary collaboration, advance policy development, perform market discovery, distribute best practices, activate stakeholders groups, and enable high quality networking opportunities, and which also seeks to team with similarly mission-driven organizations.