The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recent decision to severely restrict eligibility under the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) strips family farms and rural businesses of a critical source of support for clean energy. Over its history, REAP funded thousands of projects and delivered billions in rural economic development, including more than $2.75 billion from 2023–2025 alone. Yet at the very moment Washington is pulling back, states, landowners, and bipartisan leaders are turning to community solar and other distributed solar and storage projects as a private-market solution that helps family farmers stay afloat while powering rural economies.
“Farmers don’t want Washington telling them what they can and can’t do with their land—they want options. Community solar gives them that freedom: the ability to supplement farm income, keep working lands in production, and hedge against volatile markets. Where USDA REAP is being scaled back, community solar is stepping up—powered by private capital, embraced by state Farm Bureaus and rural communities, and delivering the freedom for farmers to decide what works best for them and their families,” said Jeff Cramer, CEO and President of the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA).
Community solar projects give landowners the ability to lease small portions of their land for solar production while continuing to farm or graze livestock on the remaining land. With smaller projects, farmers can harness their underutilized or underperforming land for solar while farming the rest. Small community scale projects also allow for the use of agrivoltaics, which combines solar and traditional farming together, and is gaining traction nationwide as a way to combine clean energy production with food production, strengthen local economies, and keep farmland in active use.
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