Amid a tumultuous legislative session, Congress has extended the current Farm Bill through fall 2024. The extension will provide some certainty to farmers while also giving lawmakers an additional year to deliberate the merits of the five-year, $700 billion funding package. This extra time allows lawmakers to more thoroughly consider innovations and investments that will shape the future of American agriculture – including “agrivoltaics,” a new practice that melds farming and solar energy.

Agriculture is a staple of American life. While metropolitan regions exist throughout the nation, it rarely takes more than an hour of driving to find yourself on a road surrounded by fields of grain, livestock, or other commodities that feed and clothe the world. Yet, increasingly, you may find yourself on a similar road surrounded by a field harvesting a far different product: solar energy. At first glance, an environmentally minded traveler may view solar fields as an encouraging sign of a brighter future independent of fossil fuels; however, this perception misses a critical insight into the tensions and conflicts that went into the conversion of that field from agricultural land to a solar site.

Swanson, T. “Crypto's Dark Secret.” Q Magazine, (4):2. https://q.sustainability.illinois.edu/cryptos-dark-secret/. February 23, 2022.

Guarino, J., R. Endres, T. Swanson and B. Endres. “Defining the Bounds of Booming Agritourism.” farmdoc daily (12):19, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, February 14, 2022.

Guarino, J., R. Endres, T. Swanson and B. Endres. "It’s Pumpkin Patch Season and Agritourism is Booming—But What Exactly is Agritourism?." farmdoc daily (11):152, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, November 4, 2021.