Progress report for LNE25-484
Project Information
6 farmers will take concrete steps towards adoption of agrivoltaics such as developing a solar design, farm plan, financial plan, working with a solar developer, offering a proposal for solar grazing to a solar asset owner, and/or submitting a proposal for funding or permitting for their project. Estimated benefits include $1,200-$3,000 per acre for siting an agrivoltaic project on their farm and solar graziers can receive $250/acre for grazing services.
This project will build long-term viability on farms in New Jersey and New York by providing training, mentorship, and technical assistance to farmer operators seeking to build and/or grow agrivoltaics businesses. The educational resources developed, and lessons learned from the project also will inform broader efforts to support farmers across the Northeast region in the future.
Agrivoltaic projects combine solar energy generation and agriculture on the same piece of land. In the Northeast, widespread adoption of agrivoltaics could help increase farm viability, provide pathways in agriculture for beginning farmers, and protect farmland from development. The opportunities are not limited to landowners. Tenant farmers, including new and beginning farmers, can benefit by providing new farm services to solar asset owners.
However, significant barriers exist to the adoption of this promising but complex innovation. First and foremost, AFT research confirms farmers lack trusted educational resources and technical assistance from expert providers in the field of agrivoltaics. The project's approach of engaging a cohort of farmers and providing them with training and direct one-on-one technical assistance, while based on successful experience in accelerating adoption of regenerative agricultural practices, is novel for agrivoltaics.
The project will assist three types of farmers: farm owners considering integrating agrivoltaics into existing operations, tenant farmers exploring agrivoltaics as a service, and new and beginning farmers seeking to start agricultural enterprises that involve agrivoltaics.
Cooperators
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Research
Not applicable.
Education
Engagement:
The proposed farmer engagement plan is modeled on successful outreach projects by American Farmland Trust (AFT) to support beginning farmers and increase adoption of regenerative agricultural practices. AFT has built extensive working relationships with existing networks of organizations and farmers that the project will leverage.
The project plan has three phases: 1) outreach and education including webinars featuring agrivoltaics farmers, solar developers, and others key stakeholders on opportunities and challenges (60-80 farmers). The webinars are scheduled for February 12 from 3:00pm to 4:30pm and February 17 from 6:30pm to 8pm. 2) training, support and visits to existing agrivoltaic projects for a cohort of selected farmers (24 farmers), and 3) one-on-one technical assistance and mentoring of a subset from the cohort group to develop and pursue agrivoltaics projects with solar designs, farm plans, and financial plans (10 farmers).
Initially, AFT is conducting targeted outreach and education to farmers, landowners, extension agents, and advisors, in coordination with partner groups through educational webinars, digital mediums, and other vehicles. To enhance efforts to engage new and beginning farmers, the project team will identify and attend local events in New Jersey and New York that attract beginning farmers, including the annual Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) conferences in each state (NY conference January 9 & 10, 2026; NJ conference January 30 - Feb 1, 2026). Staff will also attend the Northeast Agricultural Expo and Education Sessions January 21-23, 2026 in Atlantic City.
In addition, the team is conducting outreach to the local New York chapters of the National Young Farmers Coalition (e.g., Hudson Valley and Greater Catskills) as well as Cornell Small Farms, NY and NJ Extension, Foodshed Alliance, NY and NJ Farm Bureau and Rutgers Beginning Farmer Program.
The project will develop selection criteria for farmers participating in the project (e.g., acreage size, types of crops and livestock, new vs existing sites, geography) and an application package for participation including description of interest, farm business, goals, crops/livestock. AFT will build off its New Jersey agrivoltaics project templates. Applications for the farmer cohort will be accepted from February 10 – March 20, 2026. The project team will work with the Advisory Committee to review applications and select a cohort of 24 farmers to participate in the Year 2 & 3 training and technical assistance.
Farmers who agree to join the agrivoltaics training cohort in Years 2 and 3 as well as farmers who participate on the Advisory Committee will receive a stipend as financial compensation for their time. This is in addition to in-depth training and ongoing technical assistance support to overcome challenges they face by participating in the project.
Learning:
The educational content will be based on proven materials designed for farmers including, but not limited to, curriculum from AFT’s agrivoltaics education project in New Jersey, ASGA solar grazing training materials, examples of successful agrivoltaics projects in the region, and other agrivoltaics materials and resources from DOE, AgriSolar Clearinghouse, and land grant universities. The project initially will evaluate existing materials and resources, identify gaps, and develop supplemental materials.
The cohort training will begin in July 2026. The educational content will address knowledge gaps and barriers farmers face that have been identified in research including information about lease agreements, crop and grazing plans, risk, liability, insurance, asset ownership, and scalability; guidance on relevant regulations or incentives; and guidance from trusted sources.
The project will employ an educational and training approach, based on research and experience working with farmers, that is best designed to meet their needs, including enhanced peer-to-peer and experiential learning opportunities like visits to existing agrivoltaic project sites. This will be followed with mentoring, coaching, and assistance in developing agrivoltaic projects or businesses, and support in navigating new relationships with solar developers and asset owners.
Evaluation:
The project will employ pre- and post-training farmer surveys to track attitudes and awareness, knowledge gained, and actions taken by participants in Years 2 and 3. Year 2 pre-training survey will delve into farmers’ awareness of agrivoltaics opportunities and challenges, needs, and goals. Year 3 post-project survey (will go to all 24 farmers in the original cohort) will gather information on the pre-project questions as well as feedback on project implementation, lessons learned, and farmer needs going forward. In addition, Advisory Committee members will be asked to provide feedback on the overall project implementation.
AFT will employ a series of data collection tools with farmers (see draft farmer application form project verification tool, and type of participant tracker) to track farmers' actual participation in training and technical assistance as well as farmer progress in developing agrivoltaics plans and concrete actions to advance their agrivoltaics projects beyond concept stage, e.g., solar design, farm plan, financial plan, discussion/negotiation with solar developer or solar asset owner, submission of proposal to graze livestock within solar arrays, submission of agrivoltaics project for funding and/or local permitting.
Milestones
Milestone 1: Establish Project Advisory Committee
- Status: Completed - First Committee Meeting June 13, 2025
- Accomplishments: Committee has agreed to meet virtually every two months to help with farmer outreach, review training materials and provide feedback on the project. Have met June 13, August 19, October 15, December 17, 2025 and scheduled next meeting January 30, 2026.
Milestone 2: Develop resources, materials, training plans and TA plans
- Status: In-progress
- Accomplishments: Existing agrivoltaics educational materials for farmers was reviewed and gaps were identified. Some materials can be used as is, some need to be modified, and some need to be created. These training materials are not needed until the formal cohort training begins in July 2026, however, substantial progress has been made in ensuring all necessary information will be available when training begins. Education materials that needed to be updated: Sources of funding for agrivoltaics (in-progress), Agrivoltaics 101 Fact Sheet (complete - attached). New educational resources that needed to be created: Agrivoltaics resources and information guide (complete - attached), agrivoltaics conservation planning guide (complete – not designed- attached), agrivoltaics business planning guide (in-progress). The plan for training is in progress as well as the framework for the curriculum.
Milestone 3: Conduct outreach, education and recruitment of farmer participants.
- Status: In-progress
- Accomplishments: Confirmed dates for two Agrivoltaics 101 webinars, February 12, 2026 from 3:00pm to 4:30pm and February 17, 2026 from 6:30pm to 8pm. Staff and Advisory Committee members have begun advertising webinars based on outreach plan. Staff are attending NY and NJ NOFA conferences in January 2026 and Northeast Ag Expo. Advisory Committee members and other partners are also sharing the webinar and training flier to recruit participants. It is expected that the majority of applicants for the cohort of 24 farmers for the in-depth training will have attended one of the webinars, but additional recruitment outside of the webinar attendees will also happen.
Milestone 4: Develop selection criteria and application for farmer participation
- Status: In-progress
- Accomplishments: A first draft of the selection criteria has been completed and reviewed by the advisory committee. The first draft of the application is attached. The application period will open on February 9 and close March 20, 2026. Applications will be reviewed in late March to the end of April by staff, consultants, and Advisory Committee members. Selected applicants will be notified in May, the cohort will begin with a kick-off call in June, and the first-year larger cohort training will start in July with virtual sessions every other month and two in-person site visits.
The following milestones will be completed in Years 2 and 3 of the project. We will include updates in subsequent reports to NE-SARE.
In Year 2, AFT will secure additional applications, select the cohort of farmers to participate in technical assistance program, and begin training, site visits and one-on-one sessions for these producers. Key milestones will include:
Milestone 5 (08/31/26): Farmers complete application to participate and cohort of farmers selected for the project
- Status: Not Begun
- 40-50 (20-25/state) farmers complete the application to participate to receive personalized agrivoltaics training and technical assistance-support, coaching, advice, consulting, and mentoring from experts in the field
- 20 (10/state) farmers selected to participate in project complete pre-training evaluations
Milestone 6 (09/30/26): Farmer training and education commences
- Status: Not Begun
- launch virtual meeting of farmer participants with trainers in each state
- 4 (2/state) webinars with active agrivoltaics farmers, solar developers, and other key stakeholders to inform cohort members about opportunities and challenges
- 2 (1/state) site visits to existing agrivoltaic projects representing both crop production and grazing
Milestone 7 (02/28/27): One-on-one virtual technical assistance and feasibility assessments conducted with participating farmers to develop project ideas and identify farmers most likely to take concrete steps to build agrivoltaics projects
- Status: Not Begun
- 20 (10/state) one-on-one virtual sessions with each participating farmers to build ideas for agrivoltaic projects that can be moved forward in Year 3 of the project
- feasibility assessments conducted for 20 (10/state) participants to identify those most likely to lead to documented behavior change toward developing an agrivoltaics business in Year 3 (e.g., interconnection, solar potential, farm plan, capital costs, economic analysis, etc.)
In Year 3, AFT will continue education and sites visits and work individually with a group of farmers to conduct feasibility assessments, develop agrivoltaics plans, and take action to implement those plans.
Milestone 8 (09/30/27): Smaller cohort of farmers selected for one-on-one technical assistance and training to develop specific agrivoltaics plan
- Status: Not Begun
- 6 (3/state) farmers matched with AFT and/or contractor staff to begin building out agrivoltaic project plans
- individual agrivoltaics project plans developed for 6 (3/state) farmers including financial, lease vs own, funding sources, project design, and connection/conversations with solar developers, EPCs, and utilities
Milestone 9 (01/31/28): Farmer training and education continues
- Status: Not Begun
- 2 (1/state) site visits to existing agrivoltaic projects representing both crop production and grazing
- quarterly (4) virtual meetings open to all project participants (6-20 participate) organized for advanced training, shared learning, policy discussions, and coaching
Milestone 10 (01/31/28): Farmers take concrete actions to advance their agrivoltaics projects by end of the grant period
- Status: Not Begun
- 6 (3/state) farmers take concrete steps towards agrivoltaic adoption documented by deliverables such as business plans for agrivoltaic projects, entering discussions with solar developers or asset owners to farm within solar arrays, and/or the submission of proposals to graze livestock within solar arrays
Milestone 11 (02/29/28): Final report and case studies completed and widely distributed
- Status: Not Begun
- 2 (1/state) case studies developed to highlight the producers' experiences, lessons learned, advice for other producers, and recommendations to help address barriers
- post-training evaluations completed by service provider participants
- final report with recommendations released
- all materials distributed widely through state farm, extension, and conservation organizations, housed on AFT web site, and presented to NJ and NY departments of agriculture