Renewing farms with renewable energy
About this episode
Joe Heinrich discusses how farmers are integrating renewable energy solutions into their operations while maintaining agricultural productivity.
Joe Heinrich comes from a multi-generation Iowa farming family. As executive director of the non-profit Farm-to-Power , he's helping farmers to navigate the new world of renewable energy. Solar and wind developers are looking for land, which farmers have; farmers are looking for extra income steams, which energy can provide. But what happens to land with utility-scale energy installations? Some farmers are making sure that the panels are high enough off the ground that cattle can graze under them—and take advantage of the shade they provide. Others are grazing sheep under the panels, providing landscaping services and keeping the land healthy. Still others are growing crops. All of these are examples of agrovoltaics, or what Heinrich calls "double cropping"—harvesting food and energy at the same time.
More episodes of Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
- Agriculture as if people mattered : A values-based perspective on the food system
- Saving the bees that feed us: Cultivating pollinator-friendly agriculture
- Return to the savanna: How grazing restores the land and reawakens our human roots
- Knowing When to Shut Down the Farm
- Chasing Cheese: One man's trek to learn from pastoral producers across the planet
- ReciproCity — Caring for urban land and water
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