By Lia Raz
As solar development accelerates across New England, one question keeps surfacing: Can renewable energy and working lands support each other rather than compete? A growing number of farmers — and now a growing body of research — say yes.
A recent study, Sheep Grazing as Sustainable Vegetation Management for Solar Energy Production in the Northeastern USA, published this past August in Frontiers and supported by contributions from four AFT staff — Alissa White, Caro Roszell, Kevin Antoszewski, and Emily Cole — found that sheep grazing under solar arrays can improve soil health, maintain high-quality forage, and reduce vegetation management costs for solar companies.
These findings align with American Farmland Trust’s Smart Solar℠ initiative, which promotes solar development that protects farmland, supports farmers, and strengthens rural communities. Smart Solar emphasizes that how solar is designed and managed matters — and that practices like sheep grazing can help keep solar projects compatible with agriculture and long-term land stewardship.
To see how that science holds up in practice, I spent a morning with two Massachusetts graziers — Finicky Farm’s father-daughter team Jesse and Elspeth Robertson-Dubois — who manage more than 250 ewes across ten solar arrays. What they described was not a novelty, but a viable way to produce both food and clean energy on the same land.
A Production Sheep Operation — Not a Landscaping Crew
After years of conventional sheep production, Jesse and Elspeth began solar grazing in 2021 with 21 ewes on two arrays. Today, they steward more than 145 acres of solar and expect to graze close to 600 animals next year, once lambs are accounted for. They raise hair sheep for meat, sell lambs into regional markets, and retain ewe lambs to grow their flock.
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