“It has been very popular in North Carolina,” said Lisa Noel, the state’s USDA rural development energy coordinator, who explained that solar has traditionally been awarded most of North Carolina’s REAP funding.

North Carolina farmers variously deploy REAP funds to purchase solar pumps, install panels on chicken coops to reduce energy costs, and more, added Noel. “We see a lot of farms lease their land to solar developers for large projects that are tied to the grid. The land does not have to come completely out of agricultural production. Farmers can plant blueberries, and graze certain livestock like sheep. But compared to raising crops, solar [provides] a consistent income for farmers.”

Solar Pays its Way, Which Can be a Problem

Solar’s potential to supplement farming income by displacing crops from farmland is where the controversy has come in.

Last year, the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association explained that solar companies are paying almost triple the state’s average rent for crop and pasture land, a no-brainer valuation not just for farmers looking for extra funding, but any environmentalist seeking to decarbonize agricultural operations, which currently are the second largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions after energy production.

Twenty-four million acres of agricultural land have been lost to development since 1982, and with this context in mind, some policymakers aren’t too happy about solar’s agricultural growth. In Connecticut, Republican Senator Craig Miner recently proposed State Bill 412, which restricts, without explanation, the use of incentives for development of solar arrays on farmland.

“The free market, absent some moratorium, is going to continue to eat away at farmland and eat away at forestland,” Miner told the Connecticut Mirror.

Miner’s opposition is not isolated. In February, Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development farmland preservation manager Rich Moore told the Huron Daily Tribune that farmers who decide to transform their properties into commercial solar farms may lose income and property tax credits bestowed under Public Act 116, also known as the Farmland and Open Space Preservation Act.

Pushback on solar farming at the local level is garnering headlines beyond Michigan. In Washington, Kittitas County extended a moratorium on commercial renewable energy facilities through July. And while North Carolina has become a national solar leader, that hasn’t stopped Currituck County from issuing an outright ban on solar farm construction.

Concerns from some in the agriculture world arise when farmers start to take advantage of solar’s lower-risk, higher-reward opportunities and pull out of farming entirely. Prime among the examples is none other than President Jimmy Carter, who famously added solar panels to the White House in the 1970s. Earlier this year, Carter converted part of his fabled peanut farm into a large-scale community solar array.

A North Carolina farm family also decided against replanting a 47-acre, water-intensive cotton field, in lieu of renting their land to a solar developer for the local market rate, likely $500-$600 an acre annually, although terms weren’t disclosed.

Part of the uncertainty around farm-based solar comes from the patchwork of regulations, incentives, and tax credits that nationally and locally shape the solar market. A state like Connecticut, which earns high marks for its overall policies, can still fall short in some of the policy areas that make solar desirable.

That said, inconsistent local and national regulations and incentives—as well as a surprising American election outcome seeming to favor coal, oil, and gas—may not be enough to stop the growth of solar energy. “The patchwork of net metering incentives, state by state, is in flux,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance solar head Jenny Chase told PV Magazine, “but solar often has bipartisan support at the state level.”

Farmers to Detractors: Lead or Get Out of the Way

While farmers have worked, and sometimes wrestled, with everyone from state officials to entrenched utilities to decarbonize their operations and stabilize their earnings, they have also planted the seeds of tomorrow’s renewable energy agriculture infrastructure, despite the odds.

“One overarching trend hanging over the entire electric industry, in rural and urban areas, is that utilities are pretty resistant to the growth in solar that we have seen and expect to continue seeing,” ILSR’s Weinmann explained. “They find ways of imposing fees that make solar financially infeasible, and such policies definitely expose a tension between customers who want to pursue onsite generation and utilities reluctant to lose the dollars that come with electricity sales. In many cases, utilities are very unwilling to adapt to the marketplace.”

But examples of solar success continue proliferating. Total installed solar capacity is expected to triple over the next five years, and it would be foolish to think that farmers will not want to be a part of it. From greening their portfolios and operations to mitigating climate change, most farmers see themselves as part of the solution.

“Solar makes financial sense for farmers,” Weinmann concluded. “Farming is not an easy business to be in, and it hasn’t really ever been. Solar is a way to buttress that business in a way that also serves the purpose of making our energy economy much cleaner.”