AFT Statement on USDA Solar Announcement
This statement can be attributed to Samantha Levy, Senior Policy Manager for Conservation and Energy.
Since its creation, REAP has been a key source of support for farmers and rural small businesses interested in producing their own energy and improving energy efficiency to increase the viability of their businesses. This program is popular and has had a positive impact on the nearly 20,000 farmers and rural businesses that have received these highly competitive awards. American Farmland Trust has worked tirelessly to keep productive land in agriculture for over four decades. We look forward to further dialogue with the administration to achieve this shared goal while 1) ensuring that producers voluntarily seeking assistance to build solar to power their farm or ranch can still access REAP funding; and 2) to keep productive land in farming by incentivizing agrivoltaic projects that integrate farming with solar energy generation and guiding solar to be sited on less productive land.
Additional Information
Since 1980, AFT has worked at the intersection of farmland protection, sound farming practices, and farm viability to keep land in farming and keep farmers on the land. In recent years, this has included a focus on keeping productive land in farming as the country develops new energy sources. From working with farmers in the field and through farmer surveys, AFT has learned that solar arrays sited on farmland can be a lifeline for businesses by providing reliable diversified revenue streams and reducing energy cost risks. Out of this work with producers, AFT developed four Smart Solar principles designed to maximize the benefits of solar to farmers and rural communities and to minimize the adverse impacts:
Prioritizing solar development on the built environment, contaminated land, and marginal farmland
Safeguarding the ability to farm land put into solar by preserving soil productivity and water access
Advancing agrivoltaics: a win-win strategy that intentionally keeps land utilized for solar in active agricultural production
Advancing farm viability and equity
