Integrating Solar Farming on Cropland and the Potential for Agrivoltaics
2025 AAEA annual meeting track session
The 2025 AAEA Annual Meeting Track Session sponsored by AAEA’s Agricultural Finance and Management Section (AFM) and Land, Water, and Environmental Economics Section (ENV), “Integrating Solar Farming on Cropland and the Potential for Agrivoltaics” will examine how solar farms are increasingly being placed on cropland and raising concerns and community opposition to diverting land from food crops. An emerging technological alternative to integrating solar energy on cropland is through agrivoltaics, that co-locates solar panels with agricultural production on the same land, with crops being grown underneath or in between panels. The first presentation will describe the changing landscape for solar generation on cropland and the farm and farmer characteristics of the adopters of small-scale solar. The second presentation will describe the public perceptions and attitudes about solar energy systems and agrivoltaics. The third presentation examines the profitability and risks associated with various configurations of agrivoltaics. The last presentation examines the economic and land use implications of alternative configurations of agrivoltaics and discusses conditions which it can mitigate the food vs fuel competition.
Presentations in this session:
- Farmers Going Solar: Who and where are farms using small-scale solar panels?
Karen Maguire, USDA - Does More Knowledge Mean More Support? Exploring Information, Knowledge, and Perception of Solar Projects
Hongli Feng, Iowa State University - The Food vs Fuel Debate all Over Again: Is Agrivoltaics the Solution?
Pedro Diaz Cachay, Purdue University - Land Sparing vs Sharing: Integrating Solar Energy Generation on Cropland
Madhu Khanna, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
This session will take place on July 29 from 2:45 pm – 4:15 pm in the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel in the Plaza Court 1 room.
If you are interested in attending the 2025 AAEA Annual Meeting in Denver, CO, please send a completed complimentary media registration to Allison Ware in the AAEA Business Office. You can also learn more on our Annual Meeting Media Kit page or view the entire AAEA programmed schedule.
ABOUT AAEA: Established in 1910, the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) is the leading professional association for agricultural and applied economists, with 2,500 members in more than 60 countries. Members of the AAEA work in academic or government institutions as well as in industry and not-for-profit organizations, and engage in a variety of research, teaching, and outreach activities in the areas of agriculture, the environment, food, health, and international development. The AAEA publishes three journals, the Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (an open access journal), the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, as well as the online magazine Choices and the online open access publication series Applied Economics Teaching Resources. To learn more, visit www.aaea.org.
Contact: Allison Ware
Senior Communications & Membership Manager
(414) 918-3190
Email: aware@aaea.org