THE SOLAR GRAZING PLANNER: AN EASY-TO-USE EXTENSION TOOL FOR SHEEP PRODUCERS ROTATIONALLY GRAZING ON SOLAR SITES

Abstract

The solar energy industry is growing quickly in the United States and as it grows it takes up more land that was once used for agricultural purposes. As the human population grows and demands for food increase, solar development could mean reducing food production, while leaving vast areas of cultivatable land with unfulfilled potential. An opportunity exists to colocate agriculture and renewable energy activities. The purpose of this project was to examine the innovation of colocation strategies to support the development a useful extension tool for one such strategy. The Solar Grazing Planner is a tool designed to help sheep farmers design a grazing plan for solar-integrated sheep grazing. It currently allows farmers to calculate a stocking rate and design a grazing plan with a user-friendly Microsoft Excel worksheet. The tool is intended to benefit and support multistakeholder innovation in solar grazing and be further developed based on stakeholder feedback.