Global supply chains are frequently disrupted by economic crises, wars, and political conflicts, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused a unique disruption felt by all. With the widespread damage to economies worldwide, food supply chains became stagnant, jeopardizing food security for many. Both urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture, which takes place on the outskirts of cities, can contribute to regional food supply and shorten supply chains, enhancing both community control and resilience of food systems. But urban and peri-urban farmers face unique challenges in a rapidly urbanizing world. Emerging research sheds light on common challenges and solutions to preserving the resilience that urban agriculture affords our food systems.

What is urban and peri-urban agriculture?

Urban agriculture (UA) encompasses diverse practices within a city’s limits, from small apartment balcony gardens and raised grow beds in homeowners’ yards to neighborhood community gardens and walkable food forests to large-scale production plots and high-tech commercial rooftop gardens. Peri-urban agriculture (PUA) includes a similar diversity of practices, but occurs at the fringes of urban areas, where urban and rural lands blend. Peri-urban farms can be much larger than urban farms due to land use factors like zoning and land availability. 

With rapid urban expansion, farms that were once rural can be enveloped by a city’s new development. Seventy percent of the global population is expected to live in cities by 2050 (Campbell et al. 2023), and the expansion of cities will continue to push agriculture into the periphery. As cities expand, farmers will have to adapt their farms to more urbanized land use policies and growing conditions (Figure 1) or be forced to relocate.

In a 2023 review of the benefits that peri-urban agriculture can provide to urban dwellers, also known as “ecosystem services,” Mulya and colleagues note that “many cities, especially those in developing nations, have limited access to fresh water, increased waste and sanitation problems, lack access to green spaces, and have declining public health.” Beyond offering urban residents opportunities to reconnect with nature and assert control over their food systems, urban and peri-urban agriculture can also help to mitigate some of the negative health and environmental impacts associated with urban development. 

Both types of agriculture can offer many environmental and health benefits, including improving livelihoods and community connection, conserving wildlife habitats, promoting physical activity, and providing therapeutic relief. PUA and UA can also shorten food supply chains by reducing the distance between producers and consumers, and add value to waste through the use of local food scraps for on-farm compost or upcycled materials, like wood for raised beds. Well managed agricultural land has also been shown to improve soil, water, and air quality in surrounding areas, as healthy soil increases absorption area for runoff water and plants absorb CO2. 

But farming in and near cities is not without its challenges. Urban land is typically heavily polluted from vehicle outputs, road runoff, artificial light, and human-made noise. Moreover, urban land is scarce and in high demand, making it expensive, and it is often not permitted for agricultural activities.

“Necessity is the mother of invention”

A report from CGIAR Initiative on Resilient Cities showcases several examples of how peri-urban and urban agriculture have improved food system resilience in communities of Sri Lanka and Ukraine during times of instability. The report explores recent efforts to increase food system resilience, comparing them to past efforts. 

When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, for example, Cuba no longer received subsidized fuel and agricultural products from the USSR and faced a restrictive trade embargo from the US. These changes caused a sixty percent decline in available food for the people of Cuba. In response, Cuba’s national agricultural program directed municipalities and organizations to cultivate all unused land with intensive organic agriculture. While the effort was not enough to feed all of Cuba’s population, it greatly reduced food unavailability. It was an impressive development from Cuba’s national agricultural program, which was essentially non-existent before the collapse and is now a full-force production system of over 300,000 urban farms and gardens that produce about fifty percent of the island’s fresh produce. 

Sri Lanka experienced destabilized food security during the onset of the COVID pandemic, followed by a larger economic crisis that started in 2022. In response, the Colombo Municipal Council in Sri Lanka’s capital city called for the cultivation of food crops on 593 acres of public land within the city – and planted the lawn in front of Town Hall with crops. The Council developed a webpage to encourage schools and citizens to cultivate every inch of bare land, balconies, and rooftops. The central government even gave public servants Fridays off to grow crops, and the army was mobilized to produce organic fertilizer and cultivate state lands. As in Cuba, this was an impressive organizational effort for the Colombo Municipal Council, as there was no government department focused on urban agriculture before the pandemic.

Urban agriculture has become a new necessity for Ukraine’s urban residents as well. Russia’s invasion of the country collapsed supply chains and caused food price shocks around the world. Vegetable prices have risen 85 to 150 percent, eggs have doubled in price, and Ukrainians now spend 70 percent of their income on food (compared to 23 percent before the war).

In response, public and private initiatives and support from the United Nations Development Program and Canada are scaling up urban farming efforts in many Ukrainian cities. These efforts are either entirely new or built upon existing campaigns, like the zero waste and organic food movements. One initiative offered free seeds to vulnerable populations to cultivate home and balcony gardens, similar to the victory gardens of World War One and World War Two. Additional support is also being provided by way of online education on urban farming.

What challenges do urban farmers face?

These examples can serve as a blueprint for policymakers and communities looking to bolster resilience in food systems that are increasingly susceptible to shocks from extreme climate disasters, natural hazards, geopolitical strife, and long-term climate impacts on agriculture. But scaling up urban and peri-urban agriculture will require overcoming some of the unique challenges these growers experience. In a recent article published in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, Catherine Campbell and colleagues conducted a needs assessment of commercial-scale urban farmers in Florida.

Of the 29 urban farmers surveyed and interviewed by Campbell’s team, 90 percent owned or operated farms that had been in existence for 10 or fewer years, and 60 percent were in operation for five years or less. Eighty-three percent of their urban farms were five acres or less, while the average Florida farm is 246 acres (Census of Agriculture 2022). Vegetables were among their top three crops in gross sales, and a majority sold direct to consumers at farmers markets.

Farmers in the Campbell et al. study reported several advantages of farming in urban areas, such as providing opportunities for consumers to visit their farm and/or market stall, which can help to build deep relationships with their consumers.

Another benefit was the proximity of their farms to urban markets, which reduced travel time and cost associated with post-production transportation. Farming near large urban and peri-urban populations also made it easier for the farmers to find employees and volunteers to work on the farm.

But the study also surfaced common challenges facing urban and peri-urban farmers. Proximity to city dwellers was seen as a hindrance by some farmers. Curious neighbors can disrupt work or dislike the smells and noise that come with farm operations. Additionally, organic farmers need to know if their residential neighbors are spraying chemicals on their properties, as organic certifications often specify barrier lengths needed to protect crops from non-organic inputs.

Zoning and land-use regulations are another barrier farmers identified in both the Campbell and Mulya papers. Land use is often decided prior to land development, and city planners often don’t consider agriculture an urban activity. Conducting everyday farming activities, such as building a shed or driving a tractor, on land that is not specifically zoned for agriculture can require special fees and permits, adding time and expense to normal farm operations.
Furthermore, urban land is highly sought after by developers, as agricultural land is not valued as highly as residential land. Residentially or commercially zoned land is valued instead on its potential to be developed as a housing unit or a shopping center. Several farmers even reported being harassed by developers to sell their land for development.

Start-up capital is also limited for urban farmers. Most urban farms do not qualify for the same loans, grants, or subsidies that rural farms do, making up-front investments costly, regardless of farmers’ creditworthiness. This challenge is compounded when urban farmers don’t own their land, which was the case for over half those surveyed in Campell’s study. They have little control over future land use and are vulnerable to land use change, a barrier also mentioned by Mulya and colleagues.

How can we invest in urban and peri-urban agriculture?

Peri-urban and urban agriculture are by no means a cure-all, but they present significant opportunities to enhance food security, resilience, and sustainability in the face of global change.

When asked how barriers and challenges could be addressed, farmers mentioned that targeted government support, such as public assistance, education, grants, and subsidies would be helpful. Researchers also see a need for capacity building within governments to help maintain and develop peri-urban and urban agriculture areas and encourage policymakers to be strategic about how they think about land use change and land valuation (Mulya et al. 2023).

Whether the stresses stem from chronic urbanization pressures or acute shocks, researchers point to several avenues that can help build food system resilience:

• Government Leadership: Governments play a crucial role in promoting and supporting peri-urban and urban agriculture through policies, incentives, and initiatives that prioritize food security and sustainable urban development.
• Land Use Change Mitigation: Efforts should be made to mitigate land use changes that threaten peri-urban and urban farming, ensuring that agricultural land is protected and valued appropriately.
• Zoning: Revisiting zoning regulations to accommodate and encourage urban agriculture can help remove barriers and create a supportive environment for farmers.
• Subsidies, Grants, Financial Capital: Providing financial support, such as making subsidies and grants more inclusive, can help new and existing farmers overcome the high costs associated with urban farming, making it a more viable option.
• Education: Investing in educational programs and resources focused on urban farming can help build capacity, transfer knowledge, and support the growth of the sector.
• Valuation of other benefits: Recognizing and valuing the social, environmental, and therapeutic benefits of peri-urban and urban agriculture can help justify and prioritize its development.
• Further Research: Continued research is needed to better understand how peri-urban and urban agriculture can contribute to food systems, improve resilience, and enhance overall sustainability.

By addressing these areas, policymakers, stakeholders, and communities can promote and strengthen peri-urban and urban agriculture, creating more resilient and sustainable food systems for the future.

Featured Research:

Setyardi Pratika Mulya, S., Hidayat Putro, H. P., & Hudalah, D. 2023. Review of peri-urban agriculture as a regional ecosystem service. Geography and Sustainability, 4(3), 244-254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2023.06.001.

Andrew Adam-Bradford, Pay Drechsel (2023). “Urban agriculture during economic crisis: Lessons from Cuba, Sri Lanka and Ukraine.” International Water Management Institute.https://cgspace.cgiar.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7f14f676-0639-4314-8af6-a04549a3fa7a/content.

Campbell CG, DeLong AN, Diaz JM. Commercial urban agriculture in Florida: a qualitative needs assessment. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. 2023;38:e4. doi:10.1017/S1742170522000370.

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Recent research highlights how 65 percent of food system emissions come from the production, processing, transport, and consumption of just four emissions-intensive foods: beef, milk, rice, and corn (maize).

Faced with high food prices and continuous disruptions to supply chains, many households in the United States are appreciating afresh what it takes to grow, gather, and deliver the food they consume on a daily basis. But what the average consumer may not fully recognize is the extent to which their everyday food choices contribute to emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs). The food system as a whole accounts for a whopping 35 percent of global emissions, and consumer decisions like diet and shopping patterns greatly influence those emissions.

Emerging research is beginning to shed light on actions that consumers and producers can take to reduce food system impacts on the climate and move toward a “net-zero” system in which all emissions produced are offset by sequestration processes.

Emissions from farm to table to landfill

Emissions are generated at every stage of the food system, from the production of food on farms to transport and refrigeration to processing and packaging to consumer dietary choices and, ultimately, to food waste. Seventy percent of total food system emissions come from land-use change. For example, when a forest—which naturally absorbs and stores carbon dioxide as trees grow—is logged and converted to grazing or agricultural land, GHGs are released as trees decompose. Additional emissions result from tilling soils and applying fertilizers for agricultural production. The remaining food system emissions are attributable to other stages such as transport, packaging, and waste. With rising populations and growing appetites for emissions-intensive foods, emissions are projected to increase 50 percent by 2050 under business-as-usual conditions.

In a 2022 paper published in Nature Scientific Reports, Ciniro Costa, Jr., and colleagues highlight how 65 percent of food system emissions come from the production, processing, transport, and consumption of just four foodstuffs: beef, milk, rice, and corn (maize). By focusing on these emissions-intensive foods, the authors modeled 60 scenarios of interventions that could reduce emissions across the global food system. They found that a net-zero food system could be achieved through widespread adoption of system-wide efficiency improvements, shifts toward plant-forward diets, nature-based sequestration, and adoption of emerging technologies.

Most of the low-emissions interventions analyzed (70 percent) utilize existing know-how and technologies: reducing deforestation, better managing manure, improving feed and breeding (which can reduce methane emissions from livestock), reducing nitrogen fertilizer overuse and runoff, and adopting renewable energy and energy efficiency. Sequestration approaches such as agroforestry and low- or no-till agriculture also have significant co-benefits such as soil and water conservation. Greater adoption of low-emissions practices means less reliance on sequestration will be needed to achieve a net-zero emissions food system.

Emissions from food loss and waste

Reducing food loss and waste is an additional practice that Costa and colleagues emphasize. Food loss and waste alone account for 8-10 percent of all global GHG emissions (Ribbers et al., 2022), with approximately 1.3 billion tons of food perishing annually (Ouro-Salim and Guarieri, 2021). Food loss and food waste are often considered in tandem, but they are distinct issues. Food loss typically refers to loss of edible food before harvest or in the supply chain (e.g., due to inability to harvest all of a crop before it begins to rot, or poor refrigeration during transport). Food waste, by contrast, refers to loss of edible food due to consumer behavior, (e.g., over-ordering at a restaurant or poor planning that leads to groceries expiring and becoming inedible) (Kumar et al., 2022).

Notably, there are significant differences between high-income and low-income countries when it comes to food loss and waste. In high-income countries, food waste makes up 50 percent of overall losses, whereas food waste in low-income countries accounts for only 5 percent of overall losses (Kumar et al., 2022). In low-income countries, food loss is more of a problem and typically results from systemic challenges, such as lack of access to non-local markets, storage, transportation, refrigeration, and harvesting technology (Ouro-Salim and Guarieri, 2021). Reducing food waste in high-income countries is largely a voluntary act for the consumer, with very few waste-reduction enforcement policies in place (Stancu and Lähteenmäki, 2022).

Food waste can also vary by type of food, and high-nutrition foods like fresh produce are especially at risk of waste. Qin and Horvath found in their 2022 study published in Resources, Conservation & Recycling that in the U.S., household food waste can be the largest source of food loss emissions. In the case of cherries, for instance, extreme loss and waste nearly triple emissions: for every kilogram (2.2 lbs) of cherries consumed by a household, another kilogram is lost during production and transit, and a third kilogram is wasted post-purchase (see Figure 1).

Reducing food loss and waste is one way households and individuals have the power to significantly reduce their climate impact, especially in high-income countries. So what holds us back? Why do so many U.S. consumers waste food, especially when it is increasingly expensive and in some instances sporadically available? And what other choices can consumers make to reduce emissions from the food they eat?

Psychology of reducing food waste

In a 2022 paper in Food Policy, co-authors Violeta Stancu and Liisa Lähteenmäki examined food-related behaviors that contribute to consumer food waste, including consumer self-identities, purchasing tendencies, and disgust sensitivity (how easily disgusted a person is by a food’s perceived edibility). They argue that a better understanding of these drivers can help inform more targeted policy and public awareness campaigns.

In a related paper in Global Environmental Change led by Daphne Ribbers, researchers investigated behavioral motivations akin to the consumer self-identities outlined by Stancu and Lähteenmäki. While the two concepts are similar, motivation “can be defined as the process that determines the … direction of behavior, and is generally understood as the reason why humans continue, or terminate a specific behavior” (Ribbers et al., 2023), whereas self-identities refer to “behaviors that are in line with … the label that people use to describe themselves” (Stancu and Lähteenmäki, 2022). Both studies examined the environmental, moral, financial, and social dimensions of these drivers of behavior.

Stancu and Lähteenmäki found that individuals with frugal and environmental self-identities and in older demographics were less likely to waste food, whereas individuals prone to impulse buying, with high disgust sensitivity, and with higher incomes were more likely to waste food. They also found that in-store marketing and retail stimuli can influence individuals to purchase more than was planned (impulse buying), leading to food waste. These factors point to an opportunity for awareness campaigns that can help consumers limit impulse buying and adopt mindful shopping behaviors. Retailers could also be held accountable to reduce food waste by using marketing strategies that don’t prey on impulsive tendencies.

Individuals who are more easily disgusted by perceived food imperfections were also found to be more wasteful. The perception that food was inedible was largely influenced by misunderstanding the common food-labeling system of “best-by” and “use-by” dates. “Best-by” dates relate to food quality, whereas “use-by” dates relate to food safety. Checking edibility by smell or taste when a food is past its labeling date, rather than automatically tossing food, could reduce food waste. Education campaigns focused on increasing food labeling knowledge could help lessen confusion and reduce food being thrown out prematurely.

Ribbers and colleagues found that consumers who waste less food were significantly motivated by environmental and moral factors: awareness of environmental impacts or feeling guilt about wasting food. Interestingly, financial and social motivations (frugality or the concern of appearing wasteful to others, respectively) were not significant motivations to avoid food waste. The authors caution that there may be instances in which financial motivations are significant and may be intertwined with environmental and moral motivations. As in Stancu and Lähteenmäki’s study, Ribbers found that older people typically waste less food.

Both papers also noted that future research should focus on behaviors and culturally specific motivations for more targeted solutions and policy.

Individual actions to reduce food emissions

In addition to reducing food waste, individual consumers have opportunities to limit their food emissions footprint by reducing superfluous packaging and by embracing dietary shifts.

Often consumers only consider the food waste they can physically see and touch, (e.g., scraping a plate into the trash at the end of a meal or forgetting a leftover box the restaurant packed up). In reality, consumers contribute to an entire waste cycle that stems from the energy and water used during production, harvest, material extraction, packaging creation, packaging, transportation, storage, consumption, and wastage/misuse (see figure 2). Consumers should also consider the end-of-life consequences of waste: pollution, millennia-long breakdown times, and overflowing landfills (Qin and Horvath, 2022).

For instance, use of plastic packaging has increased sharply in recent decades, from 2 million tons in 1950 to 381 million tons in 2015. Some packaging helps reduce waste by extending the shelf life of foods and protecting them during transport, but not all packaging has the same emissions. In a 2022 analysis in Resources, Conservation and Recycling, co-authors Mengqing Kan and Shelie Miller focused on the environmental impacts of plastic packaging across a food’s entire lifecycle as well as its annual consumption. The authors then compared the energy used over various foods’ life cycles to equivalent vehicle emissions to put the results into more familiar terms for non-scientists.

Kan and Miller found that, based on average US per capita annual consumption rates, while emissions from food packaging are significant, for most products they pale in comparison to per capita emissions from other everyday activities like driving. Most of the food packaging in the study had annual per capita emissions equivalent to less than a day of driving (the average person in the U.S. drives 30 miles per day). Notable exceptions included carbonated beverages, crunchy chicken breast, certain types of milk, and bottled water. The authors also note significant co-benefits to limiting packaging, such as reducing the environmental impacts of extraction and disposal, especially for products disposed of improperly.

Dietary shifts are another significant way consumers can limit their personal food emissions. Virtually all scenarios that point to a net-zero food system rely on consumers shifting to a more plant-forward diet, especially in high-income countries. Demand for livestock products like beef and milk must be reduced by 10-25 percent to attain low-emissions or net-zero goals (Costa et al., 2022).

Livestock contribute to food system emissions through the food they consume and excrete, as well as the water and land needed for their production. In a 2022 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Claudia Arndt and colleagues studied several ways to reduce methane gas emissions from livestock without reducing productivity by changing their diet formulations and grazing practices alongside breeding and genetic standards. Several combinations of mitigation strategies even increased animal production. The study found that adoption of any one of these strategies alone would not attain global emissions reduction goals by 2030, but adopting multiple effective strategies would achieve target reductions.

Reducing emissions at the livestock production stage is critical to overall reduction of food system-related GHG emissions. But ultimately, consumer demand for livestock products must be curbed to lower overall emissions. Development of new plant proteins is one way to shift consumer diets to meat alternatives and meal substitutions (Costa et al., 2022).

Beyond individual actions

 While individual consumers have a great deal of agency to curb emissions by reducing food waste and packaging and choosing more plant-forward diets, governments and investors must also design policies and financial mechanisms to lessen emissions throughout the food system.

Circular economy practices can help redirect food from landfills by donating still-good foods for human and animal consumption or channeling inedible foods to composting, bio products, and sewage/wastewater treatment facilities (Ouro-Salim and Guarieri, 2021).

In their scenarios to achieve a net-zero emissions food system, Costa and colleagues found that while most low-emissions interventions were based on existing technologies, only about 50 percent would be cost effective at a price less than $100/ton of carbon dioxide. They lay out the following timeline of actions most likely to achieve net-zero emissions while increasing production of food for growing populations, favoring the most cost-effective interventions in the near future:

Governance and finance mechanisms will be needed to reduce deforestation and emissions from high-emitting crops and livestock and promote sequestration at the scale required to reduce global food emissions. For strategies that are already cost effective, traditional bank loans should be explored. To promote practices that are less cost effective, public dollars can be strategically invested in private ventures to reduce initial risks of early adoption and scale up carbon markets. The authors also spotlight the need for long-term philanthropic and patient private capital investments in high-risk emerging technologies.

Featured Research

Costa Jr, C., Wollenberg, E., Benitez, M., Newman, R., Gardner, N. and Bellone, F., 2022. Roadmap for achieving net-zero emissions in global food systems by 2050. Scientific Reports, 12(1), p.15064.

Kan, M. and Miller, S.A., 2022. Environmental impacts of plastic packaging of food products. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 180, p.106156.

Kumar, S., Srivastava, M.S.K., Mishra, A. and Gupta, A.K., Ethically–Minded Consumer Behavior: Understanding Ethical Behavior of Consumer towards Food Wastage.

Ouro‐Salim, O. and Guarnieri, P., 2022. Circular economy of food waste: A literature review. Environmental Quality Management, 32(2), pp.225-242.

Qin, Y. and Horvath, A., 2022. What contributes more to life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of farm produce: Production, transportation, packaging, or food loss?. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 176, p.105945.

Ribbers, D., Geuens, M., Pandelaere, M. and van Herpen, E., 2023. Development and validation of the motivation to avoid food waste scale. Global Environmental Change, 78, p.102626.

Stancu, V. and Lähteenmäki, L., 2022. Consumer-related antecedents of food provisioning behaviors that promote food waste. Food Policy, 108, p.102236.

The post Reducing Food System Emissions, One Bite At A Time appeared first on Energy Innovation.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is pivotal in the transition to a low-carbon energy system. Yet wide-scale deployment may be hindered due to fears about sustainability tradeoffs and pockets of social resistance. For instance, deployment of PV farms can compete with agriculture for the use of the same land for food production and may create local tensions about how land is used and allocated.

However, an emerging strategy known as agrivoltaics combines solar electricity generation with agricultural production in the same location. As shown in Figure 1, more and more research is evaluating agrivoltaics for its potential to enhance land-use efficiency, climate solutions, sustainable food, and local economies. Different agrivoltaic configurations—such as combining PV with croplands, pastures, or pollinator habitats—may contribute to achieving sustainable energy and food goals simultaneously, while possibly reducing local opposition to PV deployment. This article reviews a few recent studies that uncover what researchers are finding about the myriad potential benefits of agrivoltaics.

Agrivoltaic systems are shown to increase crop production, among other benefits, in drylands

A study by Barron-Gafford and colleagues compared the food, energy, and water implications of an agrivoltaic system to a traditional agriculture system in Arizona. Across the plants examined (chiltepin pepper, jalapeño, and cherry tomato), fruit production doubled in the agrivoltaic system relative to the traditional environment. Due to the cooling effect of plant transpiration on the solar panels (Figure 2), there were also marginal improvements to electricity production. The agrivoltaic PV system generated 1 percent more electricity on an annual basis (3 percent increase during summer months) compared to a regular PV system in the same location. Additionally, carbon dioxide uptake and water use efficiency were also both higher (both by 65 percent) in the agrivoltaic system, which the authors suggest aided overall productivity by reducing plant stress due to heat and drought.

Agrivoltaic systems can support economic development of rural communities in developing countries

A recent study conducted by Choi and collaborators sought to estimate the benefits of implementing agrivoltaics in rural communities in low- and middle-income countries. The authors selected Indonesia as a test case and applied a life cycle analysis approach to estimate the effects of different land-use scenarios on greenhouse gas emissions, income, and environmental co-benefits.

The model-based results showed that “small-scale agrivoltaic systems are economically viable in certain configurations and can potentially provide co-benefits including rural electrification, retrofitting diesel electricity generation, and providing electricity for local processing of agricultural products.” The authors also noted the barrier of high capital expenditures solar, which currently may be difficult to justify absent increases in subsidies for solar or reductions in subsidies for fossil fuels.

Pasture-based agricultural processes may also be improved through agrivoltaics

Relatively less research has explored how agrivoltaics could work in pasture settings. An April 2021 research article by Andrew and colleagues in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems conducted an experiment that monitored sheep grazing on both agrivoltaic and traditional pastures open over two years. Predictably, shady plots with solar panels generated less herbage than the sunnier, open pastures. However, lambs in both the traditional and agrivoltaic plots gained weight at nearly the same rate. The authors found reduced quantity in herbage due was made up for by higher quality forage in shady areas, possibly alongside reduced heat stress and more effective foraging behavior when sheep roamed among the PV panels. All told the comparable outcomes in lamb production between the two treatments indicate opportunities for improved land-use efficiency in an agrivoltaic pasture system.

A related study explored the opportunities of shifting conventional animal feeding operations and conventional PV farms to pasture-based arrangements that integrate PV. In Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, Pascaris and colleagues explored this potential using life cycle analysis on different scenarios of rabbit and electricity production (as shown in Figure 3). When comparing emissions from the energy utilized to mow grass in conventional PV farms and supply processed feed for conventional rabbit farms, the authors estimated substantial reductions in emissions by converting to an agrivoltaic configuration. In the agrigvoltaic scenario, rabbits fed on natural grass, eliminating the need for additional feedstock or mowing operations, resulting in sizable emissions reductions gains.

Agrivoltaic systems can restore pollinator habitat

Relative to PV with crops or PV with pasture, the most widely deployed form of dual-use PV in the United States to date is called “pollinator-friendly PV.” This type of agrivoltaic strategy installs solar arrays on top of pollinator habitat, which according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is already utilized in more than 1 gigawatt of U.S. PV installations.  A field study by Graham and colleagues published earlier this year in Nature Scientific Reports compared the composition and behavior of foraging pollinators between fully and partially shaded plots under solar arrays and on full-sun (control) plots at the Eagle Point Solar Plant in southwestern Oregon (Figure 4). Although the fully shaded areas directly beneath the panels attracted far fewer pollinating insects, the researchers observed more types and greater numbers of insects in the partial-shade plots, relative to the full-sun plots, at certain times throughout the growing season. Although pollinators were observed to actually visit plants at comparable rates between each of the treatment areas, some plants in the partial shade plots bloomed later, which the authors suggested could benefit late-season pollinators.

Agrivoltaic systems may improve public support for solar PV development

In a May 2021 pre-print posted to SocArXiv (open archive of social science research not yet under peer-review), Pascaris and colleagues reported on a survey of nearly 200 respondents across in Lubbock County, TX and Houghton County, MI. Although most of these respondents already expressed favorable attitudes toward solar deployment (72 percent), a marginally higher percentage (81 percent) indicated they would be even more supportive of local solar installations if they were combined with agriculture production. Although the results signaled that agrivoltaic proposals could further reduce local opposition, they also tracked the considerations important to communities when deliberating over solar projects – namely, that proposed agrivoltaic projects need to take into account local concerns such as how the project would provide economic benefits to farmers, the fairness in how economic benefits are distributed, the details of the siting of any new installations, and the overall alignment with local interests.

Conclusion

What can we take away from these recent studies? At the very least, each showcases the ability for agrivoltaics to increase land-use efficiency without sacrificing much in the way of either energy or food production. Furthermore, many agrivoltaic configurations appear even to enhance both food and energy production while at the same time reducing the environmental impact from pursuing each activity as a standalone.

While this area of research is still advancing, findings from these particular studies can help to inform optimal designs and standards for emerging applications of agrivoltaics. To date, little support and guidance on best-practice implementation, let alone policy, exists to foster agrivoltaic deployment. Yet if current signals in research hold up, agrivoltaics may help low-carbon energy to become synergistic with, rather than competitive with, other sustainable development goals.

Featured Research

Toledo, C.; Scognamiglio, A. Agrivoltaic Systems Design and Assessment: A Critical Review, and a Descriptive Model towards a Sustainable Landscape Vision (Three-Dimensional Agrivoltaic Patterns). Sustainability 2021, 13, 6871. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126871

Pascaris, A. S., Schelly, C., Rouleau, M., & Pearce, J. M. (2021, May 5). Do Agrivoltaics Improve Public Support for Solar Photovoltaic Development? Survey Says: Yes!. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/efasx

Barron-Gafford, G.A., Pavao-Zuckerman, M.A., Minor, R.L. et al. Agrivoltaics provide mutual benefits across the food–energy–water nexus in drylands. Nat Sustain 2, 848–855 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0364-5

Horowitz, Kelsey, Vignesh Ramasamy, Jordan Macknick and Robert Margolis. 2020. Capital Costs for Dual-Use Photovoltaic Installations: 2020 Benchmark for GroundMounted PV Systems with Pollinator-Friendly Vegetation, Grazing, and Crops. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-6A20-77811. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/77811.pdf.

Andrew AC, Higgins CW, Smallman MA, Graham M and Ates S (2021) Herbage Yield, Lamb Growth and Foraging Behavior in Agrivoltaic Production System. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 5:659175. Doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.659175

Alexis S. Pascaris, Rob Handler, Chelsea Schelly, Joshua M. Pearce (2021) Life cycle assessment of pasture-based agrivoltaic systems: Emissions and energy use of integrated rabbit production. Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, Volume 3, 2021, 100030, ISSN 2666-7843, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clrc.2021.100030.

Graham, M., Ates, S., Melathopoulos, A.P. et al. Partial shading by solar panels delays bloom, increases floral abundance during the late-season for pollinators in a dryland, agrivoltaic ecosystem. Sci Rep 11, 7452 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-86756-4

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