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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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How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Video: How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Across the open plains of North Dakota and South Dakota, sunflower fields turn the American landscape into a sea of gold. In this farming documentary, we go inside modern sunflower farming to see how farmers plant, grow, harvest, clean, dry, process, and transform sunflower seeds into valuable products used every day.

In 2024, American farmers harvested about 1.15 billion pounds of sunflowers. This video follows the full journey from warm spring planting to combine harvesting, seed cleaning, storage, oil extraction, refining, roasting, packaging, and animal feed production.

You will see how sunflower seeds are processed into cooking oil, roasted snacks, bakery ingredients, birdseed, livestock feed, and useful byproducts. From golden fields to modern processing plants, this is the story of how a beautiful flower becomes one of America’s important oilseed crops.

Watch until the end to discover how sunflower farming connects farmers, machines, factories, food production, and sustainable agriculture.