Research from Indiana University shows that concerns about the impact of solar development on U.S. agricultural production are largely overstated, with corn, soybean and wheat prices expected to rise less than 5.6% if the buildout of large-scale solar on cropland is consistent with historical patterns.
Expanding utility-scale solar energy in the United States is unlikely to jeopardize food security, according to new research.
Researchers Jerome Dumortier and Rafael M. Almeida, from Indiana University, used a county-level agricultural model to investigate how replacing cropland with utility-scale solar farms could affect land allocation, crop prices, agricultural production, and farm incomes for major crops in the United States.
A base case for solar expansion found that if 40% of future solar development were placed on cropland, a rate the research report found is consistent with historical patterns, corn, soybean and wheat prices would increase by less than 5.6%. This figure is around a third compared to long-term estimates related to biofuel production.
In a major solar expansion scenario, which took into account the impact of 80% of new solar development taking place on cropland, price increases were calculated at 9.6% and 8.8% for corn and soybeans, rising to 18.4% for wheat. The differentiation is explained by wheat being located in areas with higher solar potential, the research article said.
The newspaper explains that the impacts on commodity prices are moderate because the total land area is significantly larger than the area required for solar farms. “Notably, the scenarios modeled in this analysis are also unlikely as they rely on a high proportion of cropland replacement to meet future solar deployment targets, and do not take into account location on pasture, grassland or marginal cropland,” it adds.
Dumortier said pv magazine that a central goal of the study was to replace speculation with data as debates over where solar projects should be built become increasingly heated.
“Much of the public debate about solar development on agricultural land has been driven by incomplete comparisons. Some estimates reported in the media compare solar energy needs to states the size of New Jersey, Maryland or even West Virginia, which naturally raises concerns. While the comparison to states is correct, it must be placed in proportion to the total amount of land available,” Dumortier explains.
“The United States has a vast amount of agricultural land, and total cropland area has been declining for decades as productivity gains allow farmers to produce more with less land. These market effects lead to a downward trend in crop prices in the absence of shifts in demand or supply.”
Dumortier also said that meeting rising electricity demand with domestically produced energy, rather than remaining exposed to price fluctuations associated with globally traded fossil fuels and the geopolitical instability that impacts them, is a matter of both economic and national security importance.
“Solar installations are a domestic infrastructure and use fuel that is free and never subject to sanctions. Farmers understand this arithmetic well,” Dumortier said. “For generations, they have supported ethanol policy precisely because converting excess crop production into fuel creates an additional source of domestic energy demand and thereby supports crop prices. Solar leasing offers an additional supply-side opportunity: land that market forces are already withdrawing from crop production can generate stable long-term rents, diversifying agricultural incomes without endangering the broader agricultural system.”
“The data should give policymakers and the public reason to take a more measured view of a debate that has so far had more heat than light,” he added.
The research results are presented in the research paper “Limited impact of solar energy expansion on agricultural production and crop prices in the United States”, available in the magazine Land use policy.
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