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Fight Grows Over Converting Farmland to Solar Fields

By Marc Heller

A fight to stop the conversion of farmland to solar energy production is bumping into efforts to make farming and energy production work together.

The emerging practice of “agrovoltaics,” or using land both for solar energy and food production, could be a casualty of a conflict that’s playing out among policymakers, industry groups and lawmakers as the 2024 farm bill takes shape.

The pressure is almost certain to grow.

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What’s at Stake in Every Slice | On The Brink: Episode 7

Video: What’s at Stake in Every Slice | On The Brink: Episode 7

Six hundred Canadian farms grow grain for Warburton's under custom contract — and that partnership exists because of Canadian plant breeding. Now the man responsible for maintaining it is sounding the alarm.

Adam Dyck is the program manager for Warburton's Canada, a company that produces over two million loaves of bread a day for more than 20,000 retail locations across the UK. He's watched Canadian wheat deliver thirty years of yield gains and quality advancements that make it worth sourcing at scale — and shipping across the Atlantic. But he's also watching the investment conditions that produced those gains come under pressure. Dyck makes the case for a new funding mechanism that brings both public and private dollars into wheat breeding before Canada's competitive window starts to close.