On a vast property in Lee County, in the heart of southwest Georgia, Tyler Huber raises sheep.
As the flock grazes, the sheep need somewhere to take a break from the Georgia sun.
“It is incredibly hot, the sun is just unavoidable, and the fact that they’ve got shade every fifteen feet out here — it’s just the ideal environment, to have shade so close,” he said on a recent hot day.
The shade comes from solar panels, using that same relentless sunshine to generate energy.
The sheep, in turn, cut down on mowing costs for the solar farm. The flock loves chowing down on the vegetation under and around the panels, Huber said.
“If we’re able to grow this, which is just a buffet of everything they could ever want, they’re going to happily eat that down,” he explained.
Before solar developer Silicon Ranch bought this land, it used to have row crops — mostly corn and cotton — and beehives. Farmers can’t grow corn and cotton under solar panels, but this is still farmland for sheep and bees.
Scenes like this are increasingly common as power companies add more and more solar energy to keep up with rising demand for renewable electricity. Many of those solar panels are being built on farmland. The American Farmland Trust, which tracks the conversion of farmland to other uses, projects that 80 percent of the acreage needed to scale up solar energy could be agricultural land. The trend has given rise to a wave of opposition from local activists to state legislatures and the White House.
But supporters say, often, farming and solar energy can coexist.
Lisa Davis with the Lee County Chamber of Commerce said the Silicon Ranch project, with its ongoing sheep and beehive operations, is different from what many expect when farmland gets sold or leased to solar companies.
“They envision in their head that you’ve got these big excavators and you just move everything out,” she said. “That is so not the case.”
The county actually paused solar development a few years ago over these concerns, and asked Valdosta State University to look into the issue. The resulting study found that the financial benefits to taxpayers outweigh the downsides because farmland gets a tax break in Georgia. Farmers pay property taxes on just 40 percent of the value of their land, but the county can collect full property taxes on land used for solar.
Davis said that can make a huge difference for rural communities.
“They’re never going to get big manufacturers or a lot of big commercial,” she said. “So the opportunity for having a solar project can mean a lot.”
Still, there’s been pushback to solar on farmland. A bill in Georgia’s legislature this year would have removed the farmland tax break for an entire farm if it adds solar — even when the solar is only on part of the land. That measure passed the Georgia House but not the Senate and could still return next year. Other states, including Ohio and Missouri, have also pursued limits on solar farm development.
The Trump administration, too, has said it wants to “disincentivize” solar development on farmland.
Loss of farmland is a major concern according to the AFT, which estimates that 2,000 acres of farmland are lost to non-agricultural uses every day. But in Georgia at least, the group said solar isn’t the main culprit.
“A lot of what we see in terms of farmland conversion pressure in Georgia is actually due to low density residential development,” said Mallory O’Steen, southeast senior program manager for AFT.
There are real concerns about solar, she said.
It can drive up the price of land. Silicon Ranch recently reached a settlement with farmers who claimed another one of its Georgia installations, this one in Stewart County, was causing runoff on their land. Last year, citing concerns about effects on wildlife, the Houston County board of commissioners voted against allowing a large solar farm.
But, O’Steen said, there are also benefits. Using part of their land for solar can guarantee farmers critical income even when weather or disease wipes out crops, for instance.
The key, O’Steen said, is for policymakers to guide solar development in a way that balances energy needs with farmers’ interests.