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Traceability is increasingly important across agricultural sectors — and not just because of government regulations. Many consumers want to know that their food and other products have been ethically and sustainably sourced. Not all crops have kept up with the trend toward sustainable farming and labeling, however. In the U.S. grain sector, for example, few growers practice sustainable agricultural techniques, and transparency to the field level remains a challenge. 

DTN, which specializes in technology, data and analytics, is among the businesses looking to change that. The company is collecting data on 19 major grain, oil seed and legume crops across 35 states in preparation for launching a sustainable marketplace in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Using the marketplace powered by machine learning, grain buyers will be able to make their purchases based on agronomic practices like cover cropping, tillage and irrigation. 

“Consumer demand is a huge one in this in the near term. Brands want to say things along the lines of 'this [is the footprint]' and be able to substantiate a claim such as 'this is a net zero product,'” Grey Montgomery, senior vice president and head of ag products and operations at DTN, told TriplePundit. He referred to the increasing number of consumer packaged goods companies that provide information about the practices behind their products through scannable codes. “That kind of degree of traceability seems to be an inevitability in consumer demand, and so we're trying to do our part to meet that.”

The marketplace DTN is developing will also be useful in regards to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Scope 3 emissions reporting requirements. Although the SEC’s climate rules have yet to be finalized, businesses need to be prepared for when they are — which makes elective environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting a wise move.

“A number of companies like to be able to note what their Scope 3 footprint is … and how close they are to net zero in their in their public reports,” Montgomery said. While DTN is not creating a carbon credit marketplace, the compiled data on carbon sequestration can be used as an awareness tool for potential carbon credits, he said. 

DTN collects data on approximately 50 measures of sustainability, with cover crops being of the highest priority for the USDA. The practice refers to planting secondary crops after harvest in order to maintain topsoil health and prevent erosion, among other benefits. “We’re literally helping the USDA identify cover crops and make [farmers] aware of USDA funding that helps pay for the cost of conversion," Montgomery explained.

On that aspect, there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement. DTN’s data shows that the vast majority of grain farmers are not using cover crops, with many reluctant due to higher costs and potentially smaller yields, as demonstrated by NASA research.

Researchers Claire E. LaCanne, of the Natural Resource Management Department at South Dakota State University, and Jonathan G. Lundgren, of the Ecdysis Foundation, also found lower yields in a 2018 study of the effects of regenerative farming on corn crops —29 percent lower to be precise. However, profit actually increased under the sustainable model by a whopping 78 percent. “Profit was positively correlated with the particulate organic matter of the soil, not yield,” they wrote.

While the partnership between DTN and the USDA isn’t going so far as to require all-organic production, Montgomery is confident the sustainably grown grains, seed oils and legumes will fetch a higher price. And that will entice more farmers to convert to sustainable practices. 

“The gist of it is that what we're trying to create is a marketplace whereby any number of entities that seek to buy grain would be able to buy grain based on the ... sustainability traits [and] practices of farmers,” he said. “Because of those differences in traits, the goal ultimately [is that] farmers get rewarded with a premium non-commodity price for their practices.”

Image credit: Raphael Rychetsky/Unsplash

A rum distillery and a nonprofit are making waves with their new approach to restoring one of the nation’s most endangered ecosystems, the Florida Reefs.

With the help of locals, the Florida Keys-based distillery Papa’s Pilar Rum and the nonprofit Islamorada Conservation and Restoration Education (I.CARE) are looking to grow and distribute corals across the reef system that has declined by 95 percent over the past 60 years. 

“It’s important for people to understand that coral reefs are our most biodiverse and productive ecosystems,” Mike Myatt, chief conservation officer for Papa’s Pilar Rum, told TriplePundit. “Although they take up less than 1 percent of the ocean floor, they are responsible for housing more than a quarter of our diverse marine life and play an essential role in protecting our ecosystems and our coastlines.”

The Florida Reefs, the third-largest barrier reef system on the planet, are threatened by rising water temperatures, decreased water quality, overfishing, pollution and the acidification of algae, Myatt said. The reefs are also under stress from the effects of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease after an outbreak began in 2014. 

“The loss of our coral reefs will cause irreparable damage to our fish population, lessen storm protection, and erode the protective barrier along our coastlines, which help form our beautiful beaches,” Myatt said. 

Replanting coral with recreational divers 

The partnership employs outplanting, a promising solution to reef loss. Developed on the South Pacific island of New Caledonia in the 1950s, outplanting involves growing coral fragments in nurseries and transferring them to the ocean to replace deteriorated coral. 

“We take multiple coral fragments and place them close together on a piece of dead coral. In time, these corals will fuse and, in about 5 to 9 years, they will actually spawn, or in other words, sexually reproduce,” Myatt said. “In nature, when coral larvae settle on the reef, it will take decades before a coral is capable of spawning. The objective is to restore the health of our reefs with corals that are disease- and heat-resistant.”

I.CARE is the only restoration organization in the Florida Keys that involves recreational divers in outplanting. 

“Coral reefs need human integration in order to have a chance at survival, so the work that I.CARE is doing is imperative in making an impactful change,” Myatt said. “We’re so proud to partner with them as we continue working toward our ocean conservation and reef restoration goals.”

Since the partnership started, I.CARE has educated more than 2,000 divers and outplanted more than 15,000 corals. 

“Our model to involve local divers, local dive shops, local businesses, and recreational divers visiting the Florida Keys with the goal of restoring our reefs is a relatively new approach, but one that is replicable for any dive destination,” said Mike Goldberg, co-founder of I.CARE. “In time, we believe this will happen widely.”

Papa's Pilar aims to plant more corals in partnership with organizations like I.CARE. But more help is needed, and I.CARE's educational program aims to train recreational divers who want to get involved. 

“You don’t need to be a scientist to outplant coral. You just have to be a diver who wants to help,” Goldberg said. “I.CARE makes outplanting coral available to all recreational divers through a network of dive shops, as well as allows them to help perform maintenance on all of the outplanted corals.” 

The partnership is just one of the active efforts to restore the coral reefs in the Florida Keys, which is imperative for making a larger impact, Goldberg said. 

Education and collaboration are crucial to save coral reefs

The abnormally high water temperature in the Florida Keys is a primary factor in the deterioration of the Florida Reefs, Goldberg said. As the ocean heats up, the coral reefs lose zooxanthellae, an algae that is the corals’ primary food source and is responsible for giving it its vibrant color. 

“When this happens, you’ll see the coral turn white, which is a process called coral bleaching,” Goldberg said. “While it doesn’t mean that the coral is completely dead once it turns white, it does mean that the coral is under great stress and is in great risk of dying as a direct result of the rising water temperatures.”

Education and the involvement of the diving and sustainable tourism communities are crucial for the success of the outplanting effort to restore coral reefs, Myatt said.

“As the general population learns more about the extent of climate change and how it affects all of the various ecosystems in our world, they are more inclined than ever to want to step in and help make a difference in a direct, tangible way,” he said. 

And Goldberg seems to agree. “I have been directly involved with the scuba dive community for over 30 years, and what I can tell you is that scuba divers are quite passionate about the state of our oceans and coral reefs,” he said. “I believe it is important to give them a way to channel that passion by providing them a way to be an integral part of the restoration process. With over 6 million active divers in the world, I don’t believe on any grand scale that reef restoration will be successful without them.”

Heat waves over recent weeks brought coral bleaching in the Florida Keys to a lethal level. In response, Papa's Pilar and I.CARE are shifting focus from outplanting trips to maintenance trips. These efforts include temporarily moving coral fragments from the water to stable environments in land-based nurseries and removing excessive algae cover, which increases due to high ocean temperatures and can smother corals.

Images courtesy of Papa's Pilar Rum

Rivers of plastic are flowing into the ocean — literally. A garbage truck's worth of plastic enters the ocean every minute, according to the World Economic Forum. Much of that sinks or ends up in coastal environments, but some escapes to the open ocean. Once there, the primarily non-biodegradable junk can last for a long time, from decades to centuries. To make matters worse, the amount of plastic entering the ocean is predicted to triple by 2040, to 29 million metric tons a year, if nothing is done.

A growing pool of innovators are focused on cleaning up this floating junkyard from the world’s oceans, including those behind Seven Clean Seas. Based in Southeast Asia, ocean impact organization built a business around environmental cleanup, social responsibility and the circular economy. Led by a pair of young co-founders, it’s forging a trail to a better future for the environment and local communities. 

Seven Clean Seas’ approach to ocean plastic

With the tagline “Because the sea is f***ing awesome,” this offbeat company is serious when it comes to plastic pollution. It started with coastal cleanups in Indonesia, which is marred by plastic floating in from the South China Sea or dumped by local coastal and fishing communities.  

“We quickly realized that it was extremely efficient to focus on coastal communities where leakage is high,” said Tom Peacock-Nazil, CEO and co-founder of Seven Clean Seas. “We find a coastal community with a thousand households, and no waste management, period." 

The company's work, like the plastic waste crisis itself, has a strong social component. "The issues around waste are also social injustice issues since not everybody has access to waste management, which should be a basic human right. And it disproportionately affects the poorest communities," Peacock-Nazil said. "So, we move in and hire people from the community — we won't bring in outsiders.”

Its track record is impressive, having recovered more than 1.8 million kilograms (or nearly 4 million pounds) of plastic since 2018, with the aim to recirculate that mountain of trash for further use. Recovered plastic is sent to a newly constructed materials recovery facility on the island of Bintan, Indonesia, where it’s sorted for either recycling or processing. 

Unfortunately, it’s much more of the latter than the former. Only 5 percent of the recovered plastic can be recycled since, ultimately, most plastic is not recyclable, Peacock-Nazil said.

For the other 95 percent of the waste it collects, Seven Clean Seas had to be creative. For instance, it made investments to turn plastics into construction materials like cinder blocks. This material outperforms concrete while also avoiding the carbon emissions from concrete production, Peacock-Nazil said. Wood alternatives can also be made from some of the harder plastics.

Capturing rivers of plastic pollution

In a parallel effort, the company is looking to stem the tide of plastic entering the ocean from rivers. A significant amount of ocean plastic pollution — up to 2.4 million metric tons each year — can be traced to rivers. Seven Clean Seas is testing a large-scale floating barrier on the Chao Phraya River in Thailand. This device captures plastic but only extends about a meter into the water, allowing marine life to pass underneath. 

“We’re partnering with a Thai Buddhist temple, Wat Chak Daeng,” Peacock-Nazil said. “These monks are already recycling [plastic] bottles from their local community into polyester fabric and wearing that in their monks' robes. They're really in circularity, in waste management, and have a fully functioning materials recovery facility behind their temple." Waste collected from the Chao Phraya barrier will go to the temple's recovery center to be put to a second use. "It's going be a very exciting project," he said. 

Employment in the waste management sector

In addition to its environmental record, Seven Clean Seas also offers fair employment in regions where it can be hard to find. “Where we operate, most people have informal employment. They don’t have safe working conditions, and they’re not covered under social security — no one’s got their back,” Peacock-Nazil said. “If they injure themselves, they can’t go to work the next day and put food on the table. The United Nations has said that the informal sector of waste management is filled with indentured labor, which is slave labor essentially, and also child labor. It’s a really nasty sector.”

In stark contrast to this bleak picture, Seven Clean Seas provides paid holidays, maternity leave, health insurance and pension benefits for its staff. It also has a five-day workweek. 

“We basically treat them the way I’d expect to be treated, and that’s really important to us,” Peacock-Nazil said. “We started Seven Clean Seas as an environmental organization, clearly, but we realized that we provide just as much social impact as we do environmental impact. That’s something I’ve become quite proud of.”

Besides a commitment to hiring from local communities, the company also aims for half of its cleanup and operations employees to be women. And teams work on an educational basis with schools, community groups and religious leaders to raise awareness of plastic pollution. 

How can companies contribute to cleaning up plastic?

Ways to reduce pollution are as numerous as the plastic sacks floating in the sea. In terms of financial support, Seven Clean Seas is among the organizations spearheading the sale of plastic credits. This system rewards companies for supporting plastic removal work in places without waste management infrastructure. Similar to carbon credits, companies pay for the removal of one metric ton of plastic from the environment and receive a net reduction in their overall plastic footprint, the amount of plastic waste generated per year. Seven Clean Seas also helps organizations measure and reduce their plastic footprints, while offering best practice protocols on plastic credits.

But, of course, purchasing things like plastic credits is no substitute for companies taking steps to directly transition away from single-use plastics by using more recyclable and recycled plastic and looking toward alternative materials. 

Making recycling easier for consumers is another way businesses can pitch in. How2Recycle designed a standardized labeling system with clear instructions for recycling products and packaging. So far, over 400 brand owners and retailer members joined this initiative.

Companies can also join coalitions working to combat plastic pollution, like the Plastic Pollution Coalition. Another example is a collaboration across retail sectors called the Beyond the Bag Initiative. Companies including Target, Kroger and Dollar General aim to reduce the 100 billion plastic bags used every year in the U.S. 

Finally, in addition to Seven Clean Seas, businesses can support one of the many organizations focused on reducing plastic pollution.

We’ve produced an astounding 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste to date. However, organizations like Seven Clean Seas are chipping away at that behemoth. And, just as important, they’re doing so with a sense of social responsibility extending far beyond the environment.

Images courtesy of Seven Clean Seas

When you think about what contributes to climate change, you’re likely to conjure up images of gas-guzzling trucks, fast fashion and private jets. But other consumption habits we don’t think about greatly contribute to harming the Earth’s health, too.

Humans consume natural resources 1.75 times faster than the Earth’s biocapacity can regenerate, meaning we would need an additional planet that is three-quarters the size of Earth just to satisfy our current rate of consumption.

The agriculture sector in particular now depends on synthetic fertilizers, namely nitrogen-based fertilizers, to continue the pace of production and keep up with the ever-growing demand. 

As a cornerstone of modern agriculture, nitrogen fertilizers contributed to the rapid growth and high productivity of farming over the last century, while also raising alarm bells over their environmental impacts. While not as visually wrenching as a burning forest or displaced animals, our dependence on nitrogen-based fertilizers fuels the demise of vital planetary ecosystems and our own health. 

What makes nitrogen fertilizers harmful?

The global population hit 8 billion in November and will reach 9 billion by 2037, which will lead to an even sharper rise in consumption and strain our natural resources. 

But the solution to reducing food insecurity must not be to expand our unsustainable dependence on nitrogen-based fertilizers, such as urea. The production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers requires burning natural gas to extract liquid ammonia, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

In excess, such fertilizers also damage the relative composition of plant species and soil fertility, disrupting the delicate balance in our ecosystems and polluting our waterways. On top of that, we’re talking acid rain, polluted drinking water, and oxygen depletion and “dead zones” in bodies of water, leading to serious harm to aquatic wildlife, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Of late, scientific research has pointed to the dangers of nitrate — a key component of nitrogen fertilizers — found in drinking water. A growing body of literature indicates the potential correlation between nitrate exposure in drinking water and health effects that include heart disease, nausea, headaches and abdominal cramps. Some studies even suggest an increased risk of cancer, particularly gastric cancer, associated with dietary nitrate exposure, but there is not yet a scientific consensus. 

Because the average person hasn’t thought about chemical compounds since their high-school environmental science class, it can be hard to visualize the damage. So let’s quantify this in simpler terms: Nitrous oxide (N2O), released when nitrogen is active in fertilizers, is 300 times more potent at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. The pollution caused by our annual use of nitrogen fertilizers globally equals that of 120 million automobiles. 

Just as entrepreneurs and lawmakers work tirelessly to facilitate a transition to electric vehicles, we must also work to restrain our use of nitrogen while searching for alternative agriculture solutions to achieve sustainable food sources.

What are the alternatives?

While nitrogen fertilizers obviously aren’t the only source of pollution disrupting our planet’s health, curbing their use and finding new solutions are vital to overcoming climate- and sustainability-related challenges. Fortunately, alternative approaches exist.

Biological nitrogen fixation offers an alternative to the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers that have dominated agriculture over the last half-century. In effect, this process enables plants to maximize their nitrogen use with the help of certain bacteria. This creates the potential for higher-quality yields without damaging soil, boosting sustainability and reducing pollution due to the reduction in nitrogen. 

This mechanism can be applied to crops like legumes, while other crops like peas, lentils, peanuts, and the increasingly popular soybean can be grown without the need for chemical fertilizers altogether. However, this efficiency exists only in plants from the legume family.

Other solutions may rely on natural biological processes where plants are able to utilize a larger proportion of the nitrogen fertilizers applied, leading to less contamination in the soil, water and air.

Harmful side effects from nitrogen can further be reduced by leveraging drip irrigation to feed the plants with water and nutrients, including nitrogen, directly to the roots — maximizing nitrogen use efficiency, saving water and eliminating the threat of chemical runoff entering waterways. Inside the industry, we refer to this process as “fertigation,” and together with biological nitrogen fixation, it can define a future era of sustainable and climate-friendly farming.  

With the impacts of climate change already being felt in many parts of the world, it’s essential for the new era of agriculture solutions to adapt to these changing environments. Biostimulants, which are substances or microorganisms applied to the crop, soil or seeds, help plants tolerate extreme climate conditions including lack of water, irrigation water salinity, and inhospitable temperatures. 

In small concentrations, biostimulants replace the need for full amounts of chemical fertilizers and support the plant’s vital processes, contributing to higher yields and better quality produce. PGPR (plant growth promoting rhizobacteria) represents just one effective example of a biostimulant that can be used to boost plant growth without harming the environment. 

These natural biological processes and mechanisms provide the agricultural industry with the tools to develop the long-term sustainability needed to secure food sources while protecting all aspects of the environment.

It’s long past due to seriously begin implementing alternative solutions that address food insecurity without harming the environment. Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, which has disrupted the global flow of synthetic fertilizers, offers an opportunity for the international community to consider alternatives, especially biostimulants. But simply considering it isn’t enough — urgent action must be taken to address the unfolding climate catastrophe. And natural alternatives to harmful synthetic nitrogen fertilizers offer the only true hope of securing food supplies with a smaller carbon footprint. 

Image credit: Dan Meyers/Unsplash

Companies are increasingly being regulated to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and produce net-zero strategies. In some cases, reducing emissions is relatively straightforward. Once you start diving into what achieving net zero actually entails, however, the waters can get pretty murky. In response, one of the global leaders in business software and technology, SAP, is stepping up to help companies reach their ambitious climate action goals.

The complexities, for the most part, involve Scope 3 emissions. Scope 1 emissions are those created from direct business activities and Scope 2 covers the emissions from the generated electricity, steam, heating and cooling functions associated with the business. Scope 3 emissions, which account for the vast majority of emissions in most companies, cover those created across entire value chain of an organization — all the way upstream to the raw materials, and all the way downstream to consumer end use and disposal.

Multinational corporations with hundreds or thousands of suppliers around the world run into significant challenges when trying to track, measure and report their Scope 3 emissions. These challenges aren’t insurmountable, but they do require strong relationship-building with suppliers and support from digital technologies.

Global technology company SAP is uniquely positioned to help companies with their Scope 3 emissions. Having almost 90 percent of the world’s financial and goods flows touch an SAP system, including nearly all carbon flows, SAP has access to the supply chain data that companies are looking for in their Scope 3 accounting. SAP is converting this unique position into sustainability solutions that ease the hurdles that businesses encounter when trying to manage these challenging emissions.

What are the challenges with assessing Scope 3 emissions?

We can break down the main challenges associated with Scope 3 emissions into three categories: understanding what and where to report, collecting emissions data, and organizing and using the data. Each phase of the process presents its own set of difficulties.

Understanding what and where to report. For organizations new to Scope 3 reporting, the first step is figuring out what they need to report. Identifying which jurisdictions and reporting frameworks require Scope 3 disclosures, understanding the different requirements of each disclosure, and identifying which emissions are most material to the organization are three of the most significant challenges in this phase.

The International Sustainability Standards Board standards, set to take effect in 2024, are expected to become the global standard for sustainability reporting and should finally bring some clarity to the regulation migraine. Most jurisdictions are expected to adopt this standard moving forward. But as of right now, the lack of uniformity across frameworks and across jurisdictions is one of the most frustrating aspects of Scope 3 reporting for organizations. 

“When I speak to C-level executives, the problem is the lack of standardization and the insecurity about accurately measuring and baking sustainability into business cases,” says Sebastian Steinhaeuser, chief strategy officer at SAP.

Collecting Scope 3 emissions data. The next phase is collecting data, and this is where things can get quite complicated. The main challenges with collecting emissions data are identifying all suppliers, getting accurate primary data, finding secondary data or industry averages when primary data is unavailable, and managing industry-specific issues.

Sifting through extensive supply chains to identify all suppliers and find the required emissions data is an incredibly painstaking task. For companies that have thousands of suppliers all over the world, this might be nearly impossible, and at best, it’s immensely time-consuming.

SAP’s Sustainability Data Exchange allows companies and suppliers to effectively share standardized emissions data across business networks. Meanwhile its Sustainability Footprint Management solution calculates and manages the entire range of value chain emissions, producing audit-level data that is ready for use in the various reporting frameworks. 

Whether trying to tackle this problem on your own or by employing a data management system like SAP’s, the most important thing is to build strong relationships with suppliers. It’s critical that suppliers understand the importance of their role and the benefits they enjoy by providing accurate, granular emissions data. 

Organizing and using Scope 3 emissions data. Companies that employ a carbon emissions data management system can make great strides in managing their Scope 3 emissions data. Receiving data in many locations and compiling it all in one place, avoiding critical errors in manual data collection, receiving data at different timeframes from suppliers, and having to manage data submitted in different formats can all provide substantial headaches for sustainability teams. 

Beyond collecting and organizing critical emissions data, the key is to use the information to optimize and ultimately reduce emissions.
"Technology gives business leaders the needed data transparency to make more sustainable business decisions,” Steinhaeuser says. “Having the ability to work with verifiable data across supply chains will change the way business works and accelerate climate action.”

With significant penalties on the rise for non-compliance and greenwashing, companies need to be sure the data they report is 100 percent accurate. Any errors or oversights in this phase can spell disaster for a company’s regulatory compliance and public image. 

Having a trusted emissions data management program will not only hugely reduce a company’s workload, but it will also give them the peace of mind that the data they are reporting is auditable, accurate and complete. 

The SAP transactional carbon accounting approach

To effectively reduce emissions, companies need to work with the most accurate data available. However, not all suppliers are able to provide such data yet. This is where a transactional carbon accounting can help companies get the most accurate snapshot of their emissions profile and drive change by leveraging their financial management systems.

“Only 9 percent of companies have a comprehensive view of their greenhouse gas emissions and their impact across the entire value chain,” Steinhaeuser says. “We need to account for carbon with much more precision and control by using actual data values across our business operations and supply chains in sync with financial flows.”

Incorporating a hybrid strategy allows companies to focus first on the areas of their supply chain that produce the most emissions, work to reduce those emissions, and then transition to a broader scope of the supply chain, incorporating more supplier-contributed primary data.

With all of the complexities and challenges involved with Scope 3 emissions, taking a targeted approach that slowly builds the wealth of primary data will allow for continued improvement and greater accuracy in a company’s Scope 3 profile. This approach will not only satisfy regulators, but it will also provide investors and other stakeholders with confidence that businesses understand where their emissions are coming from, and that they are doing all they can to reduce them, one step at a time.


This article series is sponsored by SAP and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team.

Image credit: NASA/Unsplash

Recurrent, record-setting temperatures make one thing clear: The climate crisis is upon us. With the phenomenon no longer in the future tense, the dialogue is starting to shift. Prevention can no longer be our sole focus. We must also begin to adapt. Agrivoltaics presents a promising way to do so, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions through renewable energy production.

Agrivoltaics is dual-use solar

So, what are agrivoltaics? “It's a single parcel of land being used for both solar and either agricultural or horticultural productivity,” said Kelly Buchanan, policy and strategy manager at Lightstar Renewables, a community solar developer that is expanding into agrivoltaics.

Solar panels can be installed above crops on a farm, for example. They can also be mounted over greenhouses or above pastures to provide shade for livestock. Meanwhile, the energy produced can be made available to the surrounding community through local utility subscriptions. Or, if farmers and landowners install their own panels, they can use the electricity generated to mitigate their energy costs.

Designed to optimize sunlight and shield crops

Although it may look like the solar panels block out the sun and limit photosynthesis, this is not the case. “The solar panels tilt," Buchanan explained. Each panel sits on a single axis tracker that follows the sun throughout the day, optimizing solar power generation and providing the plants underneath with plenty of light. The solar panels are also bifacial, meaning they can generate energy from sunlight on both sides.

Not only do agrivoltaics double up on land use by allowing solar energy production on the same soil that grows food, but the practice also offers an important adaptation option for our warming planet. Solar panels that are mounted above crops have a protective effect, keeping plants cooler and leading to less evaporation and, therefore, less demand for irrigation, Buchanan explained. Water that does evaporate helps cool down the solar panels to optimize energy production.

“[With] the drought out West and the increasing pressure on what we use our water for, it’s huge," Buchanan said. “There's another benefit here of the solar panels creating a bit of a microclimate which can shelter from heavy rain events [and] protect plants from hail."

Increased yields

With all of these benefits, it’s no surprise that many crops actually perform better under the cover of solar panels than they do when they are completely exposed to the elements.

“In Arizona, for example, we saw that tomatoes fruited more, and peppers produced up to three times more underneath these projects," Buchanan said. "We also saw, out of a study coming from Massachusetts, that peppers, broccoli, kale and Swiss chard all saw the same or greater yield, despite a record dry and hot summer in the year the study was conducted. There's a huge opportunity here."

Benefits for farmers and landowners

In addition to the potential for higher yields and lower water needs, farmers and landowners can benefit financially from agrivoltaic contracts. “The landowner gets a lease payment for the use of the land monthly,” Buchanan said. Farmers also receive stipends to reimburse them for their time spent cutting weeds and vegetation away from the panels. 

“From the start of the project to the end, our priority is to work with farmers and farm managers to understand how agrivoltaics can be implemented and the system that works best for them,” she said. “And we're really taking into consideration soil health, especially in the construction period, and making sure we retain that soil.”

Drawbacks and challenges

While the research is encouraging, not all crops have been tested for compatibility with agrivoltaics. For all we know, some may fare worse under the system, though this does not appear to be the case so far.

Still, since the concept of agrivoltaics is in its infancy, it will likely be a while before these systems are implemented at scale. “It takes a lot of time to bring this new idea to communities, to answer their questions, to make sure they're getting the information they need, and then to allow the stakeholder process to unfold and allow communities to coalesce from a regulatory standpoint,” Buchanan said. Communities may need to vote on new zoning ordinances, for example, to allow agrivoltaics projects to go forward. 

It’s too early to say whether agrivoltaics can solve the competition for land between crop farms and solar farms. But the data suggests there are big benefits to marrying the two together — especially as the climate crisis worsens and the need to adapt, while also lowering dependence on fossil fuels, becomes an absolute necessity. 

Images courtesy of Lightstar Renewables