Beyond 0.07%: Solar, Farmland, and the Need for a Strategic Agricultural Reserve

The recent SEIA research article, “Land Use and Solar Development,”¹ as reported by Solar Power World,² argues that concerns over converting farmland to solar are overstated because utility-scale solar currently occupies only 0.07% of U.S. farmland. The statistic is accurate. The conclusion deserves closer examination. The issues discussed here apply not only to utility-scale projects, but to solar development more broadly wherever energy production competes with agriculture for productive land.

Not All Farmland Is the Same

The relevant policy question is not how much farmland solar occupies today, but how society should steward its most productive land. The 0.07% statistic uses all U.S. farmland as its denominator. That includes cropland, pasture, rangeland, woodland, and other categories of agricultural land. One acre of highly productive irrigated cropland cannot simply be replaced by one acre of marginal grazing land.

Solar developers seek flat, contiguous parcels with excellent road access, nearby electrical infrastructure, and favorable permitting conditions — characteristics that make highly productive farmland especially attractive for solar development.

The 0.07% statistic says nothing about communities where a project can still transform the character of a rural township: visual impacts, changing landscapes, concerns about property values, and quality of life. Farmers and rural communities have a legitimate voice in land-use decisions that affect their livelihoods, landscapes, and long-term economic futures.

A Strategic Agricultural Reserve

There are roughly 360 million acres of cropland in the United States, of which about 200 million acres are classified as prime cropland — flat, fertile, and heavily invested land whose characteristics often overlap with those sought by solar developers.³ There are also 13.5 million acres of idle cropland not enrolled in federal conservation programs and available for agricultural use.⁴

But that idle cropland should not be mistaken for an unlimited reserve of prime agricultural capacity. Even if every idle acre were suitable for high-quality production, it would equal only about 6.8% of the nation’s 200-million-acre prime cropland base. The actual reserve of readily available prime cropland is likely smaller.

This land should not be viewed as “up for grabs.” It should be viewed as part of a Strategic Agricultural Reserve — a reserve of high-quality agricultural capacity and flexibility for use in an uncertain future.

We maintain strategic reserves of petroleum, critical minerals, military equipment, and medical supplies because future disruptions cannot be predicted. We do not expect to use those reserves every year. We preserve them because uncertainty itself has value.

Unlike petroleum or critical minerals, no formal Strategic Agricultural Reserve policy currently exists. This gap deserves attention. Prolonged drought, depletion of major aquifers, crop diseases, geopolitical instability, population growth, and changing dietary demands could dramatically alter where food can be produced.

The Strategic Agricultural Reserve is a limited resource whose long-term value extends beyond today’s market conditions. Decisions affecting this reserve should recognize that future generations depend upon the options we choose today.

A Better Objective

The urgency of deploying renewable energy is real and not in dispute. The question is whether that urgency requires converting our most productive farmland, or whether better-engineered solutions can achieve both goals. Our objective should be to deploy as much solar as possible while minimizing irreversible impacts on strategic agricultural resources and surrounding communities.

Those goals are not mutually exclusive. Engineering innovation can reduce land requirements, minimize disturbance, improve community acceptance, and preserve future options. It is time to evaluate solar projects and optimize them using a broader set of metrics. In addition to dollars per watt and megawatt-hour produced, we should also consider:

• acres required per megawatt;
• acres disturbed per megawatt;
• amount of prime cropland affected;
• agronomic reversibility — the ability to restore land to productive agriculture after decommissioning;
• community acceptance;
• environmental resilience;
• long-term land-use flexibility;
• farmer and landowner involvement in land-use decisions.

The next generation of solar projects should compete not only on cost and energy production, but also on land stewardship. Technologies that reduce land consumption, preserve agricultural capability, minimize community impacts, and maintain the ability to restore land to food production should become the new benchmark for sustainable solar.

This article focused on the concept of a Strategic Agricultural Reserve and the importance of stewardship metrics in evaluating solar development. A companion article will examine land recovery, reversibility, and how solar compares with golf courses and urban sprawl as competing uses of productive farmland.

Author Bio

Don Scipione, Ph.D., is the founder of Roll-A-Rack, a Cleveland-based company developing solar racking technologies intended to reduce land disturbance and improve compatibility between renewable energy and agricultural land. Don previously worked as an elementary particle physicist, spent more than four decades developing optimization software systems, and served as chair of MidTown Cleveland, helping guide urban land assembly and redevelopment initiatives, including brownfield remediation issues.