Solar Grazing Saves Failing Farms: The Agri-Energy Revolution

#316 Rebekah Pierce runs a regenerative sheep farm in upstate New York and has cracked the code on making solar farms work for agriculture. Her new book "Agri Energy" reveals how combining solar panels with farming creates a win for developers, farmers, and rural communities.

The land use math is stunning. The US dedicates 30 million acres to growing corn for ethanol fuel. Solar panels are 100 times more efficient at converting land into energy. We need just 1% of US land (23 million acres) to supply all our electricity with solar alone. Converting those ethanol acres to dual-use solar could power 100% of electricity needs AND a nationwide EV fleet.

Rebekah Pierce is the author of "Agri Energy" (Island Press, November 2025) and owner of JR Pierce Family Farm in Clinton County, New York. She started with backyard chickens in 2015 and now grazes sheep across half a dozen solar projects in three counties. She writes about regenerative agriculture, solar grazing, and the intersection of farming and renewable energy.

Key Discussion Points:

• Why corn-to-ethanol uses massive land area with terrible efficiency (100 to 200x worse than solar)
• How solar grazing cuts O&M costs for developers while creating farmer income
• The real threat to farmland: urbanization takes far more land than solar ever will
• 100,000 farms lost between 2011-2018 as average farmer age hits 58
• Technical requirements: water access, secure fencing, interior paddocks for rotational grazing
• Topsoil loss: one pound per bushel of corn produced
• Resources: American Solar Grazing Association (ASGA) and REFA (Renewable Energy Farmers of America)

The book covers far more than sheep and solar. Rebekah researched all the ways agriculture and renewables intersect, from wind farms to battery storage to elevated tracking systems for larger livestock.

Connect with Rebekah Pierce 

Website: www.jrpiercefamilyfarm.com/

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rebekah-pierce-writer/

Book: "Agri Energy" available November 2025 on Amazon and Island Press

https://islandpress.org/books/agri-energy#desc

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Episode Transcript

Rebekah Pierce (00:00):
When we are thinking about how to farm on

(00:03):
solar, I think it's reallyimportant that we don't become
overly prescriptive and say, youknow, all solar projects
developed in New York State haveto have sheep on them, or all
projects have to have, you know,broccoli or whatever it is,
because when you do that, youare ignoring the nuances of the
land. You're ignoring the factthat certain plots of land might
work better for one crop or forone farmer, as you mentioned,

(00:24):
the issue with tenant farmers isa reality we need to to work
with as well. And so it's reallyimportant that if there's any
regulations that start comingdown, which this has occurred in
several states already, whereyou know, there are stipulations
about what can be grown, whatshould be done, how the land
should be used. We need to bereally, really careful about not

(00:47):
over regulating things to thepoint where it creates
additional barriers for farmersand for developers who are
wanting to implement thesemodels on their sites. Are

intro (00:56):
you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean
Power Hour, our host, TimMontague, bring you the best in
solar, batteries and cleantechnologies every week. Want to
go deeper into decarbonization.
We do too. We're here to helpyou understand and command the
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industries. So let's get to ittogether. We can speed the

(01:18):
energy transition

Tim Montague (01:20):
today on the Clean Power Hour, what we have come to
know as dual use solar, but wehave a new word for it, Agra
energy. My guest today isRebekah Pierce. She is the
author of a forthcoming bookcalled Agra energy, growing
power, growing food. She is ajournalist. She is a sheep

(01:40):
farmer in New York State.
Welcome to the

Rebekah Pierce (01:42):
show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm
excited to be here. It was great

Tim Montague (01:47):
meeting you at solar farm Summit. Shout out to
Dan French for creating such awonderful coming together of so
many interested parties in dualuse solar or agrivoltaics, is
the term I use most commonly,and I'm good with agri energy,
though. So Rebekah, give us alittle bit of your backstory.

(02:07):
How did you get into being afarmer, and how did you get
interested in renewable

Rebekah Pierce (02:12):
energy? Yeah, that's a great question, and I
will try not to be too longwinded in my answer. And I'll
start by saying that the reasonI use the term agri energy when
I'm talking about thesesolutions. And in my book, is
because I, when I startedwriting this, I was really
looking for a broader term thatkind of encompassed everything.
So agrivoltaics, I think, is agreat way to describe farming
under solar. So is dual usesolar. But in my book, I also

(02:35):
get a little bit into the weedsabout farming under wind and
things like that also. And so Iwas looking for more of a
blanket term that kind ofdescribed what I was trying to
do there. But to go back to yourquestion. So my husband and I
purchased our property in 2015so about 10 years ago to build
our house on. When we bought ourproperty, kind of our primary

(02:56):
goal in purchasing, I think webought, you know, just a little
under 25 acres. And the reasonwhy we wanted that amount of
land had nothing to do withfarming. We just wanted a lot of
space for our dog and, you know,privacy and all those good
things once we moved in, we, youknow, we started the way most, I
think, people who don't have anybackground in farming do, which
is by raising backyard chickens.
And from there, we expanded intopigs and then into sheep, into

(03:19):
grass fed cattle, and leading upto about 2020, which is when we
kind of had the first inklingthat we wanted to do this on a
larger scale, we were prettymuch just raising food for
ourselves and for a small groupof friends and family. Once the
pandemic hit, we saw thismassive interest in our farm,

(03:40):
and specifically the way we wereraising animals. So we kind of
pride ourselves on having aregenerative approach to
agriculture, so finding waysthat we can farm the land that
not only produce some sort ofend product, so your meat or
your vegetables or whatever, butalso add value back into the
land. So keeping the soilhealthy, improving soil quality.

(04:01):
When we first bought ourproperty, the soil quality was
horrendous, and we've improvedit over the period, you know,
the last 10 years or so. As wegrew, though, and as our market
grew, we realized that theamount of acreage we had just
wasn't really enough to do whatwe wanted to do, to raise
animals, you know, rotationallygrazing them to raise them in a

(04:22):
way that we felt respected theanimal and respected the land.
And so we started looking formore land. But as probably every
single listener of this podcastwill understand, it's
prohibitively expensive, and asfirst generation farmers, we
just didn't have access to thewealth of resources, you know,
in terms of land, in terms of,you know, the knowledge base

(04:43):
that you might have if you hadgrown up in farming. And so we
kind of tabled the idea for awhile, and were mostly content
just to run the farm, you know,as a hobby farm at that point,
until we were approached by acouple farming friends. Of ours
is actually the the farmers whosell us our hay for the sheep in
the winter, and they said, Hey,we're putting in a solar farm on

(05:06):
our property. We'd really likefor the land to remain in
agriculture somehow. We don'twant to farm it, you know, we
want to get out of farming.
We're ready to retire, but wewould love to see you guys make
use of it somehow. Right aroundthat time, I had also written an
article for acres USA magazineabout solar grazing, which in
2019 2020, was really just onthe cusp, I think, of what it's

(05:30):
become now. And so I already hadthis interest that had been
piqued in the concept of grazingsheep on solar and so when they
presented us with thatopportunity, we were like, yeah,
absolutely. Let's, let's startthe conversations. So in 2022 it
took a few years of back andforth, but in 2022 we got our
first solar contract, and we'renow grazing half a dozen or so

(05:53):
projects across three countiesin upstate New York.

Tim Montague (05:58):
If you're listening to this, please check

Rebekah Pierce (05:58):
yeah, absolutely. And I'll be
out all of our content atcleanpowerhour.com Tell a friend
about the show. That's the bestthing you can do. And tell a
friend about this book, agrienergy, because this is very
important content for farmingcommunities, for solar
developers, wind developers,battery energy storage

(06:21):
developers. It is a greatoverview of some of the pros,
cons and challenges that we allface in our day to day work to
clean the grid and create a moresustainable future. So I love
your backstory, Rebekah, youseem like you're coming from a
very good place, and mostpeople, honestly, whether

(06:43):
they're business people, farmersor technologists, right? Most
people are coming from a goodplace. We just want a better
future for ourselves. But thereare many misunderstandings,
okay, and naivetes aboutrenewable energy and about how
we are currently using ouramazing farmland. And I want to

(07:04):
get into that land use is frontand center here. And I'm going
to read a short passage fromyour book, because this is
amazing data for everybody inour industry, okay? And here
goes. This is in chapter two. Onthe other hand, the US could
supply all its electricity withsolar alone on just point 4% 10

(07:26):
million acres of the country'sland area, that's without even
taking advantage of rooftopsolar. And by the way, we've
converted 6% of the land area tobuilt environment, roads,
cities, suburbs, etc. If thecountry were to transition 40
million acres of ethanol fuel tosolar, ideally dual use solar.

(07:48):
She's referring to corn toethanol there. Okay, it could
meet 100% of its electricityneeds, while at the same time
also powering a nationwide fleetof electric vehicles. I could go
on. But so you make this pointthat a we're using a huge amount
of our land for corn to ethanol,which is hugely inefficient. You

(08:11):
point out it's 200 times lessefficient than land to
electricity. And you point outthat that we only need less than
1% of our land to completelygreen the grid, which is a
double edge in some regards,which I want to get into. But
when you learned this, what wasthat like for you? Because this

(08:32):
is a major aha for a lot ofpeople, I think,
completely honest here and say Ihave not always been probably
the best champion for renewableenergy. When we first started
grazing on solar, my perceptionof it was really, you know, this
is a financial means to an end.
This is going to give us newspace to graze. It's going to
give us an additional income in,you know, from the payment that

(08:54):
we were receiving from the solarcompany for vegetation
management. But I viewed it kindof as a necessary evil. I didn't
love the idea of solar taking upfarmland, but as I have gotten
you know more into the weeds onthis and learned more about how
this works, and more about howour current agricultural
landscapes are being utilized inthe US, I've realized that my
earlier opinion was kind of illfounded. So so one of the

(09:17):
conversations that comes up alot in the, you know, the
discussion about turning whatis, you know, so called, prime
farmland into solar, is, onceyou turn prime farmland into
solar, it's gone, and we don'thave that space to to grow food
anymore, right? And for me,there's, there's a couple
problems with that statement.
The first one, and this might bethe most obvious, from from an

(09:40):
economic standpoint, is primefarmland is great, but it
doesn't really do a whole lot ifthere's nobody around who can
afford to farm it. And giventhat the average age of the
American farmer, I believe, is58 and it's only rising, you
know, our farmers are aging out.
We don't have new young peoplegetting into farming. It is a
profession. My opinion, that hasa notoriously high glass

(10:01):
ceiling. There's a lot ofbarriers to getting started.
Cost being probably chief amongthem. You know, we're reaching
this breaking point where primefarmland is not going to remain
prime farmland, and solar reallydoesn't have anything to do with
it. You know, if you can'tafford to farm the land that you
own, you're going to turn itinto something else, whether
that's solar, whether that'sanother dollar general, whether

(10:21):
that's real estate, somethingelse is going to happen to that.
It's not just going to sitthere, and if it does sit there,
it's probably going to turn backinto scrub brush, you know, and
still not be useful foragriculture in that regard. So
that's kind of the first mootpoint there. And the second

Tim Montague (10:36):
point, can I stop you there? Because I think we
should also put a pin in urbansprawl, because that is a much
bigger enemy, writ large, tofarmland in America than
renewable energy. Is you give astatistic, and this is somewhat
related, that 100,000 farms werelost between 2011 and 2018 and

(10:59):
so there's a frailty to farming,because it's a hard way to make
a living. But there is also thisgreater phenomenon in America of
urbanization. Chicago is a greatcase in point, right? When you
look at the physical footprintof Chicago in the last 50 years,
it has tripled in size, and thatmachine, okay, that suburban

(11:21):
sprawl munching machine ismassive?

Rebekah Pierce (11:25):
Yeah, absolutely. And there's we're
definitely reaching this kind ofnexus in our country right now
where we need to figure out howto make more, how to make better
use of the land we have, becausethe land that's available is
shrinking, and it's notnecessarily due to just one
cause, as you mentioned. Youknow, our cities are growing
larger. People want biggerhouses. We need room for all

(11:46):
these data centers for AI, youknow, we and none of those are
inherently bad things. I thinkthose are just things that we
need to think about when we'rediscussing how to use land. So
then. So my other point, just,just going back to the, you
know, the prime farmlandargument is that if you are, you
know, just the average Joe, youknow, if I'm driving by a farm

(12:06):
field, unless I am that farmerwho manages that field, or I am
some sort of soil scientist whohas done work on that field,
there's not really a great wayof knowing, just by looking at
it, if a field is primefarmland, or if it's just a
vacant field. Now, obviouslythere's a lot of nuance in that
statement, right? And Iunderstand that, but my point

(12:28):
here is that our farmland in theUnited States is not what it was
100 or 200 years ago, onaverage. So going back to the
corn conversation, so onaverage, we lose about a pound
of topsoil for every bushel ofcorn that's produced, that's
that's not good. We're losingtopsoil at a rapid rate. You
know, there's a lot of factorsthat go into this, fertilizer

(12:50):
use, erosion. You know, thisidea that we've been growing the
same exact things in the sameexact spots for decades. You
know, our emphasis onmonocultures is really coming
back to bite us. And so we needto think not only about what we
are doing on these lands to makethem economically viable for the
farmer and for our domesticeconomy, for the people who are

(13:11):
buying these products, but alsowhat are we doing so that we can
continue to farm these spaces,you know, 100 years from now?

Tim Montague (13:18):
Yeah, it's like there's some innate assumption,
I think, by rural communities,that farming is good for the
land. Okay? It's good for thecommunity under some
constraints, like here in theMidwest, right? We have massive
subsidies for corn and beanfarming, and as a result, we
have lots of corn and beanfarming, more corn and beans

(13:40):
than you can shake a stick atand converting corn to ethanol
is highly energetic, pollutioncausing and inefficient. We
could do much better byconverting that land to dual use
solar, where it's good for theland, you actually would have
organic farm ground after 40years of agri solar. If you
treat the land well, and you cangraze it. You can crop it and do

(14:06):
better by the land. Instead ofdumping all these chemicals and
pesticides on the land andkilling the soil and sucking the
carbon out of the soil andcausing massive erosion, right,
we have a huge dead spot in theGulf of Mexico, right, because
of all the chemicals that we'redumping on the on the land here
in the Midwest. So there's somany things that come back to,

(14:29):
well, agri solar is good forfarmers. They can triple their
income, right, by renting theirland to a solar developer, which
gives them life on the land,which is not easy, right? A lot
of young people don't want tostay on the land when they look
at the economics. So this is alifeline for rural communities.
And the tax incentives, whichwe've covered here on the show,

(14:52):
are massive for local community,local rural communities. It
really is a lifeline, okay? Andit's good for the land. Like,
that's, that's my bottom line.
Is we need to create a moresustainable land use for future
generations. We can't keepmining the soil, which is what
we've been doing.

Rebekah Pierce (15:10):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's
really helpful to kind of shiftour perspective, you know, for
at least the last 50 or soyears, you know, especially
since, you know, the the Earlbutts, you know, get bigger, get
out. Dictate that farmers neededto get larger and consolidate
into just a couple of crops. Ithink we've really had this very
extractive idea of agriculturein the US. So what can we get

(15:34):
out of this land, rather than,how can we look at things from a
systems based approach? And Iknow this is, you know, kind of
a side note to the to the solarpiece, but when we think about
especially the tariffs that havebeen top of news lately. So corn
and soy are our top twoagricultural commodities, not
just in the Midwest, but in theUnited States at large. Just

(15:55):
soybeans alone, about half ofour soybeans traditionally are
sold to China. As of this month,China has yet to purchase any
American soybeans from the fallharvest. So we need to find ways
where we can keep thoseagricultural economies more
local and benefiting localcommunities. And I think dual
use is a great way to do it.

Tim Montague (16:16):
Yeah, I have to say the government has really
stepped in some big doo, doo onthe soy bean thing. There is now
a financial crisis looming forsoy farmers, and that's that's
impacting a huge swath of theMidwest. For sure, I don't know
what's going to happen to thatcrop if China doesn't buy it, so

(16:38):
I hope there's a peacefulresolution and but this is, this
is a good data point too. Like,it doesn't make good economic
sense if you're dependent on aChinese market for your product.
Like, why put ourselves in thatposition when we could be
growing electricity, right?
Which is, we're going to triplethe grid, not only because the

(17:01):
data centers. You know, twoyears ago, we weren't talking
about data centers. We weretalking about electrification of
transportation andelectrification of HVAC and
industrial processes. And that'sstill happening, albeit more
slowly now, thanks to thefederal government putting, you
know, quashing that. But we weneed to be energy independent,

(17:22):
and part of this is land useindependent, right? We don't
want to be dependent on foreignmarkets. We want to grow stuff
that makes sense. We need foodfor sure, and I don't want food
prices to go up. It'sinteresting. We're not growing
broccoli and cauliflower andpickles on these on our prime

(17:43):
farm ground, because it islucrative, quote, unquote, to
grow corn and soy, because thosecrops are so highly subsidized.
If you take away the subsidies,things change dramatically, and
so we need to level the playingfield also right for other
crops, which I think farmersactually would enjoy.

Rebekah Pierce (18:09):
Yeah, and I've written, you know, quite a lot
about crop subsidies, and myopinions on them, and they
certainly, you know, they havetheir place, and there are
benefits. But the problem is,like, what you're mentioning,
when we're incentivizingAmerican farmers to just grow
one thing, or in some cases,incentivizing them not to plant
anything at all, then that'swhere we have a problem, because

(18:30):
so much of what we're currentlygrowing in this country is not
staying domestic. And it couldright, like we have some of the
most fertile farm ground in theworld, even with, you know, the
problems I had mentionedearlier, yet we are producing
just a small, small percentageof what we could be. You know, I
always come back to this idea ofwe need diversity in our energy

(18:53):
diets, and we need diversity inour food diets, and we aren't
producing that diversitydomestically, even though we
could. There is a study, and Iincluded it in my book. And I'm
probably going to botch thenumbers now because I'm trying
to recall them off the top of myhead, but I believe it was about
90% of our food supply could beproduced within 100 miles of

(19:14):
where we live. And that's trueregardless of where you live in
the United States, we need toget more creative about the
crops we are growing, as youmentioned, and think about
better ways to incentivizefarmers to do that. And I think
dual use does present thatopportunity, because it removes
a lot of that financialinsecurity, and it removes a lot
of that risk, so farmers aremore comfortable trying new

(19:37):
crops and experimenting withdifferent growing techniques so
that they can continue to keepas many of their products local
as possible.

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(20:28):
call 855-584-7168, to find outmore, I want to continue this
conversation about land use, andthen we will pivot to how
developers see things and how towork with developers, but, but
let's focus on farming in ruralcommunities. You yourself are a

(20:49):
sheep farmer, and there are alot of nuances to that. Figuring
it out and making it work is noteasy. But what are, what are
some of the misconceptions,okay, for landowners and rural
communities about renewableenergy writ large?

Rebekah Pierce (21:08):
Oh, gosh, how much time do you have, right?
There's, there's a lot. I thinkthat the prime farmland
complaint is probably issuenumber one. I think there's also
a lot of fear that theseprojects are being developed by
people from outside thecommunity, which, you know,
that's a fair assumption. Mostprojects are being developed by

(21:31):
companies that don't, you know,that aren't centrally located
within those small towns, sure.
But then, as kind of, you know,ancillary to that point, one of
the complaints or concerns thatI've heard recently is there is
this fear that solar companieswill kind of advertise their
interest in using sheep to grazea site or doing some form of

(21:53):
agrivoltaics in the early stagesof a project. So in the planning
or the siting, or, you know,whenever it is, they have to
come in and get that communitysupport, and then either it
doesn't happen, you know, it'skind of sheep washing, for lack
of a better term, you know,instead of green washing, or
there's a concern that a farmerfrom outside that community is
going to come in, take over thatfarmland and start using it,

(22:15):
which that's that's really notwhat happens. You know, I've had
people mention that to mebefore, and it's it's not
practical. You know, theprojects we're grazing are all
within two hours of our homefarm here, so it's not really a
valid concern. And I thinkthere's also some worry that
we're going to be all sheep andnothing else. And it's true that
I think sheep are really thekind of the plug and play option

(22:36):
for solar right now. I thinkit's very easy to get sheep on a
site that's already beendesigned and built and been
functioning for a few years. Butas you know, and I've heard you
mentioned before, there areplenty of other opportunities to
do other things on solar aswell. Whether that's cattle or
pasture pigs or clipped wingpoultry or vegetables or you
name it, you can do it. So. Soagain, I think that fear is a

(22:57):
little bit overblown as well.

Tim Montague (23:01):
Yeah, and, you know, I get it that rural
communities don't like change,but they have to remember that
only a small percentage of thelandscape is going to be
impacted. First of all,sometimes it seems like there's
an onslaught, because ourinfrastructure is is
concentrated, the power lines,the substations, the access to

(23:24):
the grid is not everywhereuniformly. And so projects do
get cited in proximity to thegrid. And this can mean that
there's a concentration ofprojects in certain places, and
then sometimes there's otherprojects, like pipelines, also
on top of that. And so acommunity kind of gives, oh,

(23:44):
we've had enough, and I get thatthe so there is, you know, a
potential downside. And theother downside that I think that
we also need to be cognizant ofas energy professionals is that
if, if the land is being farmedby tenant farmers. These are
farmers that don't own the landand it gets converted to solar

(24:07):
they may get kicked off theland, and this may harm their
livelihood. And we need to becognizant of this and work with
them as well and and win themover any and make sure that
they're included. And of course,if you're going to do dual use,
you can keep that same farmer onthe land, albeit under modified
conditions, because, let's faceit, you know, 40% of the ground

(24:30):
is now covered by solar ifyou're doing trackers, for
example. And so it's going to bedifferent, and it may require
different crops. And this isdefinitely a emerging field of
how to crop with solar and whatworks and what technology to
use. I know that there'snumerous companies coming out
with elevated trackers, forexample, so that you can perhaps

(24:53):
grow more sun requiring crops orbigger animals like cattle. So
it's an emerging. Field, but ifyou're committed, okay, as a
landowner or as a developer, youcan figure it out. And there
are, you know, to their credit,some developers, like blue wave
out of Massachusetts, that'sdoing nothing but agrivoltaics

(25:14):
Now, and that's super cool.
Yeah, so shout out to them, andthen a quick shout out to ASCA.
So if you're a landowner and youneed resources and information,
the American Solar grazingAssociation is a great one.
There's also RIFA renewableenergy Farmers Association,
which is a newer organization. Idon't know. Have you had any
contact with RIFA?

Rebekah Pierce (25:35):
Yeah, I have.
They're, they're incredible. I'mexcited to get involved with
with everything they've gotgoing on. They're great.

Tim Montague (25:40):
Oh, very cool. So there there are resources. Okay,
so if you're listening to thisand you're a landowner, reach
out to asga and RIFA. Tons andtons of resources. And
obviously, Rebekah can be aconnector for you. There
anything else about the land useand rural communities before we
switch to how developers need toperhaps change their game too,

(26:04):
because it's a both. And it'snot just, we're not just
expecting rural communities tochange their ways and go all of
a sudden, oh, yeah, come on insolar developers, it's a two way
street.

Rebekah Pierce (26:14):
Yeah, 100% and I think the only thing I would add
here, and this might be kind ofa nice bridge into your next
topic of discussion here is thatwhen we are thinking about how
to farm on solar, I think it'sreally important that we don't
become overly prescriptive andsay, you know, all solar
projects developed in New YorkState have to have sheep on

(26:34):
them, or all projects have tohave, you know, broccoli or
whatever it is. Because when youdo that, you are ignoring the
nuances of the land. You'reignoring the fact that certain
plots of land might work betterfor one crop or for one farmer.
As you mentioned, the issue withtenant farmers is a reality. We
need to to work with as well.
And so it's really importantthat if there's any regulations
that start coming down, whichthis has occurred in several

(26:57):
states already, where you know,there are stipulations about
what can be grown, what shouldbe done, how the land should be
used, we need to be really,really careful about not over
regulating things to the pointwhere it creates additional
barriers for farmers and fordevelopers who are wanting to
implement these models on theirsites.

Tim Montague (27:18):
Yeah, and you know, every jurisdiction has
different rules. I canappreciate you know, in New
Jersey, for example, or inMassachusetts, these are smaller
states where farm ground is at amuch bigger premium than in some
larger states. In New Jersey,you can't do Greenfield ground
mount solar anymore. You have todo agrivoltaics or dual use if

(27:40):
you're going to do ground mount.
And this incentivizes morerooftop solar for like,
community solar. And I thinkthat's great because there are
tons and tons and tons ofwarehouses and big rooftops in
New Jersey that should besolarized first before we use
the spare or sparse remainingfarm ground. So that's, you
know, special case, and Iabsolutely support that, but I

(28:03):
hear you also about not beingtoo prescriptive. So if you're a
legislator, an elected official,please, you know, reach out to
the community of dual useexperts and get their advice,
because there are certain thingsthat you might do that'll really

(28:24):
be counterproductive and willscare developers away in droves.
It's very easy to scaredevelopers away by making things
too restrictive, or scarefarmers away for that matter.
Yeah, 100% All right, so let'stalk about the energy developers
out there. You know, energydevelopment happens primarily

(28:46):
because it is economic and andso again, it's happening in
places where there are goodregulations in place incentives
for community solar, forexample, or counties that aren't
too prescriptive about where youcan put solar farms, you know,

(29:07):
setback requirements and thingslike that. So but, but from a
developer perspective, how goodare developers at working with
the concept of dual use, wouldyou say on, you know, on a one
to 10? Where are we in that, inthat journey?

Rebekah Pierce (29:26):
I think it's, it's a journey that is rapidly
evolving, I can tell you. Sowe've only been doing this for,
you know, on the ground aboutthree years, but we've been in
conversations for about the lastfive and within those, just
those last five years, theconversations have really
transitioned from us trying tosell the fact that solar grazing
would likely be cheaper thanmowing, and that was kind of our

(29:49):
sole selling point fordevelopers to now we are at the
point where folks areapproaching us and saying, we
want to do this, because wereally do think it's better for
the land, and even if it is alittle. Bit more expensive than
mowing. We're still okay withit. So there's been this shift,
and I think a lot of it has todo, you know, in all fairness, I
think a lot of it has to do withoptics. I think it's a lot

(30:11):
easier, in general, to get aproject pushed through if, if
there is going to beagriculture, agriculture
happening. But I also think,just from, you know, recognizing
human nature, we all know thatwe need to be able to eat. We
all know that we need our ruraleconomies to be healthy. And so
I think that there has been asas solar grazing and as agri
energy as a whole becomes morecommonplace. And I think as

(30:32):
there is this recognition thatit's not as risky and we don't
need to be as afraid of it. Youknow, sheep are not really going
to damage anything, I thinkthere's been a larger scale
acceptance across the board, andthose conversations really have
changed within the last fewyears to more of a systems based
approach, rather than just, whatare the dollars and cents of

(30:52):
this all?

Tim Montague (30:54):
Yeah, I think solar grazing has been the tip
of the spear when it comes toagri solar. Really, there's, now
gigawatts of solar projects,especially in the Southwest in
Texas, some very, very bigprojects that are being grazed.
And I think it is relativelysimpler to integrate sheep into

(31:18):
a more traditional solarconstruction style of
construction, you know, at facevalue, traditionally, what
energy developers would do isthey would lease parcels that
are contiguous. They want to puttogether a a piece of ground
that they can then build a solaror wind farm on. And you know,

(31:39):
traditionally, they're notthinking about agri solar.
They're just thinking, Okay,we're going to take this corn
and beans and we're going toconvert it to a solar or wind
farm. I mean, in the case ofwind, it's not so much, right?
Because you're you're onlyimpacting maybe 10% of the real
estate, and then it's justbusiness as usual with the
farming around the windturbines. But for solar, much of

(32:00):
it would get taken out ofrotation. And so this was a
change, and this is somethingthat irritates rural
communities. And so I do thinkthat dual use solar is a carrot
to rural communities fordevelopers, nimbyism is a real
thing. A developer told me ayear and a half ago, Tim my
projects are taking twice aslong and costing me twice as

(32:21):
much to develop because of thepushback from rural communities.
And what that tells me is ayeah, we're growing a lot of
solar now. You know, we'vebecome a major industry. 80% of
new energy on the grid is wind,solar, batteries. But two, we
haven't done a great job of theground game and working with
local communities, educatingthem, and, you know, being part

(32:46):
of the community and helpingthem understand, but then also
leaning into agri solar, whichthey're going to embrace, I
think, much more than just solarfarm on a cornfield. And, yeah,
okay, maybe it's pollinatorfriendly. We have good
pollinator friendly regulationsin some states, you know, New

(33:08):
York, Illinois, Massachusetts,but it is a select few. And if
it's, you know, you're justputting in turf grass and then
mowing it, you know, it's, it'skind of a math for, I think
rural communities, whereas, ifyou're growing crops or growing
sheep or cattle or pigs orchickens, I think rural

(33:29):
communities go, Oh, cool. Thisis still farming, and we get it.
We need electricity. It mean,electricity gives us the modern
world that we all love,honestly, and so now we can grow
that electricity on the landright around our communities,
and it's a both.

Rebekah Pierce (33:48):
And, yeah, and I think, you know, one of the
things that I've been saying alot lately, and this might
offend some folks, and for that,I apologize, but it's my opinion
that the renewables industry haskind of a massive PR problem in
that there are so many amazingbenefits of these systems,
especially agri energy systems,but renewables as a whole. And

(34:10):
the problem is that when we getinto these rural communities,
we're not, you know, getting inthere and tailoring our
messaging to what thatindividual community needs and
wants. So a lot of my I have afull time freelance writing
business outside of the farm andthe work that I'm doing with
this book. And so, you know, Ido a lot of work in advertising
and marketing, and one of thecore tenants there is, you

(34:31):
really need to understand youraudience. And so I think if you
are, you know, for anybody who'sin the who's a developer,
anywhere in the industry that'slistening to this, I think one
of the most important things youcan do is to get to know the
people where you are wanting toput in these projects, and don't
make assumptions on what theywant or what they need, but
actually talk to them and thentailor your proposal you know

(34:53):
for whatever you want to dobased on that. So if you are
putting in a project, you know,in a. Cattle farming community,
maybe you need to start thinkingabout cattle voltaics, you know,
if you're putting in a project,you know, that's in the Corn
Belt, you need to think aboutwhat your project is going to do
to the corn industry there, andreally tailor that messaging to
address those concernsspecifically, because they may

(35:15):
not care quite as much you knowabout other pieces, like, you
know, pollinators, or thingslike that. So it's definitely
really important to to addressthat accordingly. I think,

Tim Montague (35:26):
you know, one example I like to bring to the
fore is Apex clean energy. Theyare one of the developers, and
I'm putting this on screen. Ifyou're not watching the video,
check it out on YouTube. Butthey have an amazing website
where they actually documenttheir projects under development
and post development, and it's aboth hand. And so what you see

(35:46):
here is a map of other projectsacross the country, and this
includes wind and solar, and youcan drill down in a specific
jurisdiction, and you seethere's a little guide here.
They've got utility scale solar,utility scale wind. And so I'll
just click on a project. There's100 megawatt project here in
Indiana, homes powered 20,000learn more. And you can actually

(36:09):
subscribe to notifications aboutthis project, whether it's built
or under development. And thisis really good, because a lot of
developers, I find tend to wantto be very secretive about their
work. And guess what?
Communities don't like it whenthey get caught off guard, and
all of a sudden there's ahearing that they learn about

(36:30):
on, you know, a Tuesday and nextThursday, there's a hearing
about a solar farm down theroad, and they're going, WTF,
bro, I didn't know about this.
They don't like that. Gotchamoment, right? And so I think
developers need to learn to bemore proactive, more boots on
the ground, more embedded in thecommunity. And I get it, they

(36:51):
can't have a constant presencein every community you saw on
that map. They're working over ahuge swath of the United States,
in the case like apex, I mean,they're, they're a well known
utility developer of wind andsolar, but I do think that
developers need to up their gameon a variety of things. It's

(37:14):
both working with localcommunities and becoming more
mission driven about creatingsustainable land uses, right?
Mowing turf grass is notnecessarily a sustainable land
use, in my opinion, and what isthe economic good for the local
community there, mowing ispolluting, right? And it's
expensive. And as you pointedout, this is one of the reasons

(37:37):
why solar grazing has taken offin the US, is because the
developer can actually savemoney on their own M costs by
embracing grazing. The sheepneed food. The food is growing
on the solar farm. So you putthose two together and you have
a win, win. Now, there are somenuances, and we should talk
about those, which it helps ifyou plan for this from the get

(37:59):
go. Because sheep are animals,they need water. Okay? You got
to have water on site. They'renot getting all their water from
the grass they're eating. Thatdoesn't happen. They need water,
and they need to be kept safe,right? They need to be free from
hazards, whether that's wiresthat are hanging low to the
ground or other things that theycan get caught on. They have,

(38:20):
you know, wool and tails, andyou know, they can, they can be
injured. And we want to becognizant of the animals that
might be on the, on the on theon the farm. So what else should
developers be thinking about?
And kind of, I think you kind oflay out a a system, for lack of
a better expression in your bookabout this

Rebekah Pierce (38:41):
I do and so again, this is where I think
nuance and really havingconversations with the farmer in
that area is important. So I'llstart with water, because I know
you brought up water. So what'sreally interesting is, when we
first started our solar grazingbusiness and started, you know,
picking up these projects thatwere several hours away from our
home farm, they were existingprojects that we weren't

(39:02):
involved in the planning on, andso they did not have water on
site. And so our concern was,how are we going to graze our
sheep on, you know, 30 or 40Acres, and how are we going to
get water to them if we'rehaving to truck it two hours
twice a week? Something reallyinteresting that we found so
this year, so I'm in upstate NewYork, and so we have had a

(39:23):
record breaking drought thisyear. You know, it's causing a
lot of problems for a lot of theother farmers around here who
aren't grazing solar one of thethings that fascinated us was
that even in the midst of thisdrought, when when the
vegetation shouldn't be holdingthat much much moisture, it was
still growing really wellbeneath the panels, because it
was shaded, and our sheep wereconsuming very, very little

(39:46):
water, I think, because theyalso had shade and protection
from the heat. So this is notscientific at all. We didn't
take official measurements oranything like that, but our
water needs were weredramatically lower than we
thought they would be. Now,obviously we are still trucking.
Them water, because we're notgoing to not put out water, but,
but water considerations arestill important, especially, you

(40:07):
know, once you move into theMidwest and once you're on, you
know, especially these largerutility scale sites we only
graze, you know, very smallcommunity solar sites that are
less than 30 or so acres. Sotrucking enough water for
animals that are on thoseproperties isn't a huge deal,
because we don't have a largenumber of animal animals on site
at any given time anyway, but ifyou're grazing a site that's
several 100 acres, then it'sgood to have those conversations

(40:28):
early on with the developerabout provisions for water and
also for things like interiorpaddocks, so that the farmer
isn't having to run out, youknow, strands of temporary
electric to subdivide the areainto paddocks. Because one of
the things people don't realizeis when you put sheep on a solar
site, you're not just kind ofdumping them out and letting
them have the whole thing.
Typically, you are dividing itinto separate individual areas

(40:50):
for grazing. And the reason forthat is so that the animals can
a because they if you give themthe whole space, they're like
little kids. They're just goingto go eat all the candy first
and eat all the stuff they like,and not like and not touch their
broccoli. And we want them toeat the broccoli. They need to
eat everything. And then there'salso, you know, part of our
approach is regenerativefarmers. Is rotational grazing
and making sure they're ondifferent strips at a time, to

(41:13):
make sure that land is bouncingback the way we want it to. And
we're doing the best we can buythat land. So interior paddocks
are helpful the biggest thing,and this is kind of the piece
that we always emphasize withdevelopers, if we are able to
have conversations early on,because I think it's probably
one of the hardest to fix, kindof retroactively, is fencing.
And so my understanding is thatall solar farms need to have

(41:37):
that exterior fence, you know,to meet safety codes, the
problem comes in when we see,one of the things we've seen a
lot in our local communities iscommunities pushing for a gap
between that lower edge of thefence and the ground. And
they'll say, Well, it's only,you know, 12 inches or so, so

(41:57):
wildlife can pass through, andthat's great for the turtles,
and you know, the, you know, youknow, the small animals that
they want migrating throughthere. But it also means things
like coyotes and domestic dogscan get in with the sheep, and
that's that's a big problem forus. So we do try to have those
conversations early on and findways to mitigate it. If
communities are concerned aboutwildlife, finding other ways we

(42:19):
can, we can make that work,because we really want to make
sure that that fence is securefor the sheep.

Tim Montague (42:26):
Hey, guys, are you a residential solar installer
doing light commercial butwanting to scale into large CNI
solar? I'm Tim Montague. I'vedeveloped over 150 megawatts of
commercial solar, and I'vesolved the problem that you're
having. You don't know whattools and technologies you need
in order to successfully close100 KW to megawatt scale

(42:50):
projects. I've developed acommercial solar accelerator to
help installers exactly like youjust go to cleanpowerhour.com
click on strategy and book acall today. It's totally free
with no obligation. Thanks forbeing a listener. I really
appreciate you listening to thepod, and I'm Tim Montague, let's

(43:10):
grow solar and storage. Go toclean power hour and click
strategy today. Thanks so much.
I could talk to you all day,Rebekah, but I think we're going
to wrap it up there. I want toencourage my audience to check
out your book, agri energy. It'sout in November of 2025 This
interview is dropping just a fewweeks before the book is

(43:31):
released. It is it is availableanywhere you buy books, right?
Do you want to say any moreabout that?

Rebekah Pierce (43:43):
Yeah, just check out the book. It's, you know,
it's several years in themaking. And I, you know, I don't
talk just about sheep in it, youknow, I'm looking at all of the
different ways that agricultureand renewables can come
together. One of the cool thingswhen I was writing the book is I
really thought it was going tobe very focused on sheep and
solar. And as I researched thisand started having
conversations, I realized thatit is much, much bigger than

(44:04):
that. So definitely check itout. It's available Amazon
directly through Island Press.
Pretty much as Tim said,anywhere you find books, you can
find it and reach out. You know,I'm always willing to to answer
questions, to have conversationswith people. I understand
there's a lot of confusinginformation out of there, and
misinformation anddisinformation. So I think as
long as we keep theseconversations going, we'll all

(44:24):
be in a much better place at theend of it, check

Tim Montague (44:29):
out all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com.
Please give us a rating and areview on Apple or Spotify. Tell
a friend about the show. Reachout to me on LinkedIn. I love
hearing from my listeners, andwith that, Rebekah, do you have
a website, or what is the bestway people can reach you?

Rebekah Pierce (44:44):
I do have a website. It's just
Jrpiercefamilyfarm.com, and thenI'm also on LinkedIn. I think
that's probably the best way toget in touch. So just Rebekah
Pierce on LinkedIn.

Tim Montague (44:54):
I'm Tim Montague, let's grow agri solar, take
care, everybody.