As the climate crisis grows ever more urgent, land conservationists are taking meaningful action to reduce carbon in the atmosphere and protect natural systems from the unavoidable impacts of a warming planet, according to a new report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. 

From the Great Plains of the United States to the high-altitude wetlands of Ecuador, land trusts and conservancies are developing and implementing creative, nature-based strategies to address climate change. In the report From the Ground Up: How Land Trusts and Conservancies are Providing Solutions to Climate Change, Lincoln Institute experts James N. Levitt and Chandni Navalkha document these initiatives through a dozen case examples that demonstrate how conservation organizations can help mitigate and adapt to climate change. 

“Such organizations are working in more than 100 nations on six continents,” write Levitt, director of the Lincoln Institute’s International Land Conservation Network, and Navalkha, the Lincoln Institute’s associate director of sustainably managed land and water resources. “They represent millions of engaged citizens working from Finland to Chile to pass our natural heritage on to future generations.” 

The report explores how land trusts and conservancies have addressed climate change in five distinct areas, with examples of successful initiatives in each:  

• Land Protection, Restoration, and Management
• Water Supply, Stormwater Management, and Buffering Against Sea-Level Rise  
• Biodiversity Conservation 
• Carbon Sequestration 
• Energy Production 

Among the cases, the report documents how The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is using sophisticated geospatial technology to identify sites  in the United States where wind turbines will not pose a threat to birds or other wildlife. The initiative, Site Wind Right, draws on more than 100 sources to map wind resources, wildlife habitat, infrastructure, and other relevant data. It identifies more than 90 million acres as suitable for wind turbines—enough land to generate wind power equal to the country’s entire electricity supply from all sources in 2018. 

Meanwhile, the South American capital city of Quito, Ecuador, has confronted threats to its water supply—made worse by climate change—through an ambitious land conservation program. The municipality worked with the local water provider and others to enhance water quality and supply downstream by conserving and better managing land upstream, in the high-altitude wetlands known as the Andean páramo, which surround the city. Through partnerships with international organizations, including TNC, the program has been replicated in at least seven other Latin American cities, generating more than USD $200 million for conservation efforts from 500 public and private partners. 

Drawing on these cases and 10 others, Levitt and Navalkha synthesize lessons learned and make five recommendations for those who seek to confront climate change through land conservation: Empower civic sector initiatives that are creative and ambitious in scope and scale; invest in initiatives with clear strategies and measurable impact; aim for broad collaborations; share advanced science, technologies, and financing techniques; and think long term. 

“In the evolving struggle to rein in and cope with climate change globally, all sectors must join forces to find solutions that are sustainable, replicable, and reliable,” the authors conclude. 

Will Jason is director of communications at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Image: Flint Hills Credit: Brad Mangas

In China’s Sichuan Province, a craggy, mist-shrouded corner of the Min Mountains occupies a fabled place in the country’s land conservation history. Spanning more than 37,000 acres and known as Laohegou, this protected area is home to more than a dozen giant pandas, as well as Sichuan golden monkeys, musk deer, and takin. It also serves as a link between two neighboring, nationally designated nature reserves, filling a gap in continuity across an ecologically important swath of giant panda habitat. 

Yet unlike the reserves it connects, Laohegou isn’t protected by the government. It’s a nature reserve run by a civic conservation organization, the first of its kind to be established in China. Ecologically important in its own right, it gives a glimpse of the role that civic land conservation efforts can play in supplementing the longstanding—and rapidly expanding—system of governmental land protection. 

Since Laohegou’s creation in 2013, China’s civic land conservation movement has burgeoned. Today, more than two dozen organizations, backed with funding from foundations affiliated with some of the biggest companies in China, work at a national scale. Their efforts have added nearly 4,000 square miles of protected land at more than 50 sites throughout the country, complementing a government system of protected lands that has recently expanded to include the first official national parks. 

These flourishing civic efforts are being aided by the Lincoln Institute’s International Land Conservation Network (ILCN) and the Peking University-Lincoln Institute Center for Urban Development and Land Policy (PLC), which are working to connect conservation practitioners within China and across the world, and to help shape national land protection policy. 

At the UN biodiversity conference in Kunming in 2021, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the establishment of five national parks—the country’s first, although it manages a system of nature reserves that dates to the 1950s (see sidebar). The newly established parks, in locations ranging from the high Tibetan plateau to the verdant, panda-rich mountains of Sichuan Province, and from southern island rainforests to a haven for tigers and leopards in China’s far northeast, will give a taste of the kaleidoscopic profusion of habitats across the country while providing a bulwark against rapid development. 

Xi’s announcement was the latest sign of the government’s broad commitment to protecting ecologically important land. Government-protected land now totals about 18 percent of China’s land area, and includes 2,750 nature reserves and thousands of other protected areas of various forms, according to the State Forest and Grassland Administration. In 2015, the government began moving toward a more comprehensive system that will improve land management, increase protected land, and integrate “crown jewels” like national parks with nature reserves and other protected land into a cohesive, ecologically robust whole. 

China’s New National Parks 

The five national parks formally announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping include the massive Three-River Source (Sanjiangyuan) National Park in the remote, northwestern Qinghai Province; Wuyi Mountain National Park in coastal Fujian; Giant Panda National Park spanning Sichuan, Shanxi, and Gansu provinces in the west; Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces; and the Hainan Tropical Forests National Park in the southern island province of Hainan. 

The road to Xi’s announcement began in 2015, when the Chinese government launched the development of a national park system and established 10 pilot national parks; three years later, the government established the National Park Administration. In addition to the five national parks designated in October, five more are still undergoing evaluation: Qianjiangyuan-Baishanzu in Zhejiang Province; Pudacuo in Yunnan Province; Shennongjia in Hubei Province; Nanshan in Hunan Province; and Qilianshan National Park in Gansu and Qinghai provinces. 

The government’s steps are a significant shift for ecological protection in China. But there’s another promising dimension to this quiet revolution. Originally seeded in part with ideas adopted from outside China, particularly the United States, the efforts of domestic land conservation organizations are growing into a distinctively Chinese movement. 

The reality of the land management system in China dictates a different approach to conservation. Most land in China is either state- or collectively owned; individuals and private or civic organizations can’t own land themselves. Nor can they employ the signature tool of U.S. private land conservation: conservation easements. These negotiated agreements grant a government agency or an entity like a land trust the right to restrict development, natural resource extraction, or other activities on a particular piece of land in order to maintain its ecological integrity. But conservation organizations in China have been patiently testing approaches to working within the particular constraints of the land management system here. And in 2008, they got an opening. 

As part of a broader effort to defibrillate the centrally planned economy with a jolt of market forces and competition, the central government allowed for “use rights” to collectively owned forestland—which accounts for nearly 60 percent of the forestland in China—to be leased to non-government entities. It was a significant policy shift, one that would make it possible for non-governmental organizations to essentially act as land trusts, which conserve land by acquiring property, acquiring conservation easements, or stewarding property owned by others. In this case, The Nature Conservancy’s China program (TNC China) realized that the regulatory change might give conservation groups an opening to lease use rights to forestland—and then not use the land. 

“Initially, we didn’t see any potential to copy the land trust model into China,” says Jin Tong, director of science for TNC China. “But [the 2008 changes] really opened the door.” 

In 2009, TNC China and the State Forestry Administration signed a memorandum of collaboration to explore land trusts as a new conservation model in China. After an exhaustive search for an ideal pilot location, TNC China zeroed in on Laohegou and helped create a separate entity called the Sichuan Nature Conservation Foundation—the first private land trust in China. The foundation then negotiated a 50-year “conservation lease” for Laohegou with the local county government. 

That, it turned out, was just the start. The effort to establish Laohegou soon led to the creation of China’s first truly domestic private land conservation organization. TNC China’s board had long been a who’s who of influence in China. In 2015, the TNC China board reconceived the Sichuan Nature Conservation Foundation as a vehicle for taking the land trust concept far beyond Laohegou, and renamed it the Paradise Foundation. They seeded the organization with several staffers from TNC China. 

In the years since, the Paradise Foundation has gone on to become the most influential private land conservation organization in China. Today, in addition to Laohegou, it runs five other projects spread across the country, including 63,000 acres of nature reserves in Sichuan that protect giant panda habitat, a 26,000-acre migratory bird site in northeast China’s Jilin Province, and nature reserves in Anhui, Zhejiang, and Hubei provinces. 

The foundation’s work is part of an effort to more effectively round out the government’s own conservation efforts. “We hope the Paradise Foundation’s protected areas can demonstrate effective management and help strike a balance between conservation goals and community development needs,” says Ma Jian, a former TNC China deputy director who is now a Paradise Foundation vice president. 

Several of those protected areas were existing government-run nature reserves that the Paradise Foundation assumed management of after reaching agreements with local governments. China has not infrequently been bedeviled by the so-called “paper park” problem, particularly at county and provincial levels, in which areas are protected but local governments struggle to adequately fund their ongoing operation and management, including the policing of poaching and illegal logging. 

“For many of China’s protected areas, staffing, expertise, and funding often aren’t adequate,” Ma Jian says. “But civil organizations hope to help in the establishment and management of protected areas, not only in terms of providing financial assistance, but also contributing personnel and expertise, and they’re ready to commit for the long term.” 

“Land trusts,” he adds, “are a way to make this happen.” 

As the Paradise Foundation has expanded, the number of other civic land conservation organizations working in China has grown dramatically. “Local NGOs are getting stronger and stronger, both in terms of funding and effectiveness,” says TNC China’s Jin Tong. “People generally have been putting a higher priority on ecological protection, and domestic philanthropic funding has been trending higher and higher.” The civic conservation movement has been powered largely by funding from Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent, as well as large real estate firms. 

Civic organizations also looked to the Land Trust Alliance (LTA) in the United States for inspiration about how to leverage their effectiveness. In 2017, the Paradise Foundation, TNC China, and 21 other NGOs and foundations launched the China Civic Land Conservation Alliance (CCLCA). “We hope it will be a catalyst, like the Land Trust Alliance,” says Jin Tong. “It’s a platform to share experiences and best practices, and a way to amplify our voices by speaking together.” 

China Civic Land Conservation Alliance Membership 

The number of civic land conservation organizations of all sizes working in China continues to grow, with the Beijing-based Heyi Institute estimating the current total at more than 3,000. Twenty-six of those groups form the China Civic Land Conservation Alliance: The Nature Conservancy China, Paradise Foundation, Heyi Institute, Shanshui Conservation Center, SEE Foundation, Alibaba Foundation, Shenzhen Mangrove Conservation Foundation, Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society, Lao Niu Foundation, Guangxi Biodiversity Research and Conservation Association, Global Protected Area Friendly System, Global Environmental Institute, Shenzhen One Planet Foundation, International Union for Conservation of Nature, International Crane Foundation, Tencent Foundation, Yintai Foundation, China Green Foundation, China Green Carbon Foundation, China Environmental Protection Foundation, Friends of Nature, Beijing Cihai Biodiversity Conservation Foundation, Qiaonyu Foundation, and Yunnan Green Environment Development Foundation. 

The International Land Conservation Network has helped in this effort. “ILCN connects people all over the world who care about civic or private land conservation and gives them a way to share experiences,” says Shenmin Liu, who is currently based at the PLC in Beijing as ILCN’s Asia representative and its representative to CCLCA. 

In the early days of CCLCA, Liu explains, ILCN brought several conservationists from China to the United States to attend the annual LTA conference in Pittsburgh, and to tour New England to learn about sustainable forestry and conservation easements. That exchange helped spur new thinking about what CCLCA could accomplish, she says: “During that trip, the participants made a list of the things they wanted to achieve when they were back in China.” 

Among those achievements was the creation of a uniform set of standards for civic protected areas in 2019. The standards were informed by LTA and adapted from International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines. As of September 2020, 51 civic protected areas meet CCLCA’s criteria, covering nearly 4,000 square miles across 22 of China’s 34 provincial divisions. The Alliance, which now numbers 26 members, has set a goal of protecting 1 percent of China’s total land area—some 37,050 square miles—by 2030. 

For the past several years, a team of CCLCA conservationists from TNC China has participated in an effort to acquire conservation agreements (a Chinese designation similar to a conservation easement in North America) adjacent to a national park being created at Baishanzu, southwest of Shanghai. In doing so, they will add to the scale of the protected area with the national park at its core, creating a mosaic of interrelated conservation land. This Chinese civic sector team is participating in ILCN’s second Large Landscape Peer Learning Initiative, working with peer organizations in the United States, Canada, and Romania to continuously improve the quality of their strategy-making and implementation efforts. 

Civic organizations in China have always negotiated a delicate relationship with the government, and in recent years the government has scrutinized NGOs of all stripes. In 2017, new regulations on foreign-affiliated NGOs came into force, requiring them to disclose their membership rosters and sources of funding, and to affiliate themselves with a government partner which then functions as an operations oversight unit. These NGOs must submit annual work plans for approval by both their government partner and the local Public Security Bureau. 

Even in the context of these requirements, conservation NGOs are largely able to continue operating as before. In contrast with more sensitive issues like human rights and labor, “in the environmental protection world, the political overtones aren’t that strong, so there have been fewer restrictions,” says Lin Jiabin, a consultant to the PLC and former senior fellow of the Development Research Council, which makes policy recommendations to the State Council and the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. 

In fact, the goals of civic conservation organizations are largely aligned with the national government’s agenda. The government has made ecological sustainability a core plank in its policy and ideological platforms. In 2007, Xi Jinping’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, endorsed the pursuit of “ecological civilization.” The concept has come to encompass a nationwide focus on ecological sustainability, but also serves as a rubric under which China is more broadly attempting to elaborate a uniquely Chinese alternative development model for other countries. It was subsequently incorporated into the Chinese constitution as one of the five core missions of the Chinese Communist Party, and Xi Jinping, who is trying to cast China as a global environmental leader, has been a fervent advocate. 

The government’s emphasis on ecological civilization, Jin Tong says, “helps focus more attention on biodiversity protection and provides space for NGOs to develop their activities.” The national government has also signaled that it expects wealthy individuals and companies to play a bigger philanthropic role in Chinese society. As part of his “Common Prosperity” initiative, Xi Jinping has increasingly called on wealthy enterprises and individuals to increase philanthropic giving in an effort to help reduce social disparities. Corporate donations totaled more than $4 billion in 2020 and were on track to exceed that amount in 2021. 

“The current emphasis on the construction of ecological civilization is really helpful to civic organizations,” says Ma Jian. “Not only that, but the Chinese government is emphasizing the ‘three distributions,’ and the concrete implementation of that is through philanthropic institutions. So I think all kinds of policies are providing good conditions for the development of philanthropic institutions.” 

While their relationship with the government is sometimes ambiguous, civic land protection organizations have been able to forge numerous informal alliances with government ministries and government-affiliated think tanks, an avenue that allows them to assist the government in identifying conservation priorities and experimenting with policy reform. 

Early on, TNC China lent both its own expertise and TNC’s broader global know-how to identify areas of high conservation value. That assessment was incorporated into China’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which was released in 2010. More recently, the Ministry of Natural Resources has commissioned the PLC to conduct broad policy research on its behalf on natural resource management policy that would support the formulation and implementation of national and provincial spatial planning. The PLC is also working to explore the application of remote sensing-based precision conservation techniques from the Lincoln Institute’s Center for Geospatial Solutions for water quality management in large lakes that involve multiple jurisdictions in China. 

And for its part, the Paradise Foundation has worked to encourage the government to try out conservation easements. In 2019, Guojun Shen, a member of both the Paradise Foundation’s board and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress—a powerful advisory body to the central government—submitted a proposal advocating the development and use of conservation easements in China. Easements are one way to address the complications that arise when protected parcels include farms or other collectively owned enterprises, like small-scale logging operations, within their boundaries. “Tenure is a big challenge with protected areas, and we’ve learned that clarifying tenure and clarifying management responsibilities is a prerequisite for effective management of protected areas,” says the Paradise Foundation’s Ma Jian. “We think conservation easements are a key to solving this problem, so we hope to try them out.” 

“Easements are a way to lighten the burden: the landowner doesn’t lose ownership rights, but you’re merely separating the ecological protection rights, which can lower the cost of protection,” he adds. “At the same time, if the easement goes onto the land ownership registers, that provides long-term ecological protection for the land.” Conservation easements are now being evaluated as a way to help protect ecological resources on collectively owned “inholdings” within Qianjiangyuan-Baishanzu pilot national park in Zhejiang province and Wuyishan national park in Fujian province. 

In China, the phrase shehui liliang has come to refer to “the non-governmental sector.” Literally translated, though, it means “the power of society.” And it’s clear that even as civic conservation organizations continue to navigate their relationship with the government, they have become an established force for land protection in China. 

Now, civic organizations are trying to figure out how they can amplify their effectiveness—and in particular, how the lands they’ve worked so hard to save can be better integrated with the larger mosaic of government-protected lands. “We’re working this from different angles,” says TNC China’s Jin Tong. “We’re trying to explore how more inclusive governance could be institutionalized into ongoing protected area system reform. How can non-state actors, including NGOs, play a role in the protected area system? Multi-stakeholder engagement could link all this together to fill conservation gaps and strengthen management capacities in existing protected areas and national parks.” 

TNC China and the Paradise Foundation are working with the Institutes of Science and Development, a high-level national think tank affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to explore how non-governmental stakeholders, including local communities, NGOs, the business sector, and the public, might better participate in protected area planning and management. 

Even more broadly, Jin Tong says, “from the international perspective, there’s more and more recognition of the role that non-state actors are going to play in advancing the biodiversity agenda.” This was clearly illustrated in the lead-up to the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 conference in Kunming in October 2021—the same event at which Xi Jinping announced the creation of China’s first five national parks—when the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment hosted a two-day global NGO Forum on biodiversity organized by a network of civil society organizations including PLC. 

Over 400 participants from more than 30 countries took part in the event on-site and online, representing governments, businesses, NGOs, local and indigenous communities, and the public. The forum, whose livestream garnered more than 500,000 views, resulted in a joint call to action to invest in and protect biodiversity. And significantly, China’s Minister of Ecology and Environment, Huang Runqiu, extended an open hand to the non-governmental sector: “I call on non-state actors to contribute to the success of COP15 and open a new chapter on biodiversity governance.” This new chapter speaks to the ever-growing importance of private and civic organizations in land protection in China, and the staying power of the movement. 

Matt Jenkins, who has previously worked as an editor for Nature Conservancy magazine, is a freelance writer who has contributed to The New York Times, Smithsonian, Men’s Journal, and numerous other publications. 

Lead image: Qianjiangyuan-Baishanzu pilot national park, Zhejiang Province. Credit: TNC China.

The final miles of the one-hour drive west from Boston to Knowlton Farm in Grafton, Massachusetts, wind through a patchwork of landscapes: wooded, residential lots with 1950s-style ranch homes; treeless subdivisions dominated by brand-new McMansions; and the rolling meadows of the 162-acre Hennessy Conservation Area. At last, the farm’s old red dairy barn, with a small sign reading “Hay 4 Sale,” emerges along a wooded country road. 

In its heyday, this 334-acre family business was a dairy farm. But when the dairy’s profits began drying up in the late 1990s, the Knowlton family sold its herd and focused on producing hay. On this late August day, fourth-generation farm owner Paul Knowlton is baling hay in a field beyond the barn that’s bordered by woodlands. A broad-winged hawk drifts overhead. The sun scorches, but the crisp afternoon light and cricket chorus hint that fall is on its way. Knowlton rides a small green tractor, towing a mechanical harvester that pops up neat, rectangular bales, like a jack-in-the-box, as it slices through the hayfield. 

In a year or two, things will look different here. Knowlton Farm will produce not only hay, but berries, pumpkins, leafy greens, and grass-fed beef—all underneath 3.1 megawatts (MW) of “agrivoltaic” solar arrays built to allow for production of renewable energy and crops on the same land. The income from this newly installed solar project will allow Knowlton to hold on to the farm, which his family has owned since the 1800s; he’ll also be able to plant new crops, acquire a small head of cattle, and experiment with regenerative farming practices that can help improve soil health, restore ecosystems, and sequester carbon. The arrays are part of a community solar project growing here that will produce enough electricity to power about 520 homes. A smaller array powers the farm’s activities. 

One such array undulates across a two-acre field behind the farmhouse. Unlike conventional ground-mounted solar arrays that hug the earth, this agrivoltaic array towers nine feet high. Knowlton planted a cover crop of winter rye grass to prepare the field for spring planting, and Monarchs and other butterflies flit among the rye and scattered wildflowers that pop up beneath the rows of gleaming panels. The panels are spaced dozens of feet apart to allow farm equipment to pass between them. 

Agrivoltaic systems, also known as dual-use solar, have been successfully deployed in Japan and some European countries over the last decade. They are emerging in the United States as a potentially promising way for farmland to contribute to climate mitigation and resilience, while keeping farmers on their land at a time of fundamental disruption in agriculture. Meanwhile, in the drought-stricken West, climate-smart agricultural transition strategies are encouraging the installation of more conventional solar energy systems on farmland that must be taken out of production. 

Siting renewable energy on farmland isn’t a new concept in this country. In the wind-rich Plains states, wind development has helped prop up struggling farm economies for a decade, and a 2021 study by Cornell University found that 44 percent of existing utility-scale solar in New York State has been developed on agricultural land (Katkar et al. 2021). Farmland’s wide-open spaces are particularly well-suited for renewable energy development, and it’s generally easier to connect rural solar projects to the grid because there is greater transmission capacity available, in comparison to dense urban areas. Farmers benefit from the payments for leasing a portion of their land, which can make all the difference at a time of rising farm bankruptcies. 

Now, as renewable energy gains strength and world leaders commit to energy transition goals, new opportunities are emerging. Solar is booming in the United States as photovoltaic costs continue to drop. The industry grew at a clip of 42 percent annually over the past decade. As of 2020 it was valued at $25.3 billion, with more than 100 Gigawatts of solar now installed in the country. President Biden’s recent announcement of an economy-wide goal of net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 ups the ante; Princeton University researchers estimate the net-zero goal will require the deployment of solar and wind energy on about 150 million acres, or land equivalent in size to Wyoming and Colorado (Larson et al. 2020). That could be a sizable chunk of U.S. farmland, which totaled nearly 900 million acres in 2020. At the same time, California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is driving the retirement of 500,000 to 1 million acres of the Central Valley’s 5 million acres of irrigated farmland by 2040, as part of an effort to rebalance the state’s groundwater supplies. 

Investing in renewable energy on farmland could be a win for climate mitigation, conservation, and agriculture—for farmers and their local economies—but only if it’s done right, observers say. Dual-use solar represents “a potentially significant opportunity for agriculture and for rural America,” says David Haight, vice president of programs at American Farmland Trust, which is a third-party certifier for the Knowlton Farm project. “But it has to be done with farming in mind, and so that it doesn’t result in displacing farming across large parts of our landscape.” 

Haight says 90 percent of new solar capacity built by 2050 will be developed in rural areas. Solar on non-working farmland, meanwhile, can boost conservation goals by keeping farmers on their land. Well-managed farmland can provide a range of ecosystem services, from sequestering carbon to providing habitat for diverse native plant and animal species to buffering against floods, drought, and heat. 

Whether solar complements agricultural operations or replaces them on a portion of a farm, the associated revenue “can help financially struggling farmers sustain themselves through bad weather or tough economic times,” says Jim Holway, director of the Lincoln Institute’s Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy. Revenue from renewables, he adds, can also provide funds for socially beneficial water efficiency improvements or other soil and land conservation investments. 

Dual-Use Solar in the Northeast 

Between 2001 and 2016, according to the American Farmland Trust, approximately 105,500 acres of New England’s 3.97 million acres of farmland were lost to or threatened by development. Roughly 35 percent was irrevocably lost to urban development, while the remaining acreage was impacted by low-density residential development, which ultimately changes the nature of rural communities. 

Climate change adds further pressure, as extreme downpours, flooding, and intermittent drought, among other impacts, make farming more challenging (see sidebar). “The future unknowns of how to maintain farm viability are getting larger, and that leads to a lot of uncertainty about farmland staying in farming,” says Emily Cole, New England deputy director at American Farmland Trust. 

Agriculture is responsible for roughly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, but efforts to shift to farming practices that sequester carbon in soil could help agriculture be part of the solution; the National Academy of Sciences estimates the carbon sequestration potential of U.S. agricultural soil at 276 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 4 percent of U.S. emissions. Once farmland leaves a farmer’s hands for permanent development, however, that’s no longer possible, says Cole. “There’s no more opportunity to improve soil health practices or garner clean energy.” 

Paul Knowlton knows these pressures firsthand. Grafton is ground zero for what Massachusetts Audubon calls “the Sprawl Frontier,” a belt of rapidly developing communities in central Massachusetts outside Worcester, New England’s second-largest city. Land prices are high, and aging farmers face increasing pressure to sell their land. Knowlton has been approached by developers and even works as a carpenter in residential construction to supplement his farming income. “Every time I go to work, I see a farm destroyed. I am part of the machine, and I don’t like it,” he laments. 

For a time after selling its herd, the Knowlton family made ends meet with the hay operation and income from other jobs. But when the farmhouse needed major renovation, the family carved off one housing lot and sold it to a developer. That’s when Knowlton decided there had to be another way. In 2015, he installed a 2.5 MW conventional solar array that stabilized the farm economically with its lease payments. That success got Knowlton thinking that maybe he could install more solar arrays, but in a way that would allow him to plant around them. Coincidentally, the solar developer that built his first array, BlueWave, was thinking the same thing. 

BlueWave was founded by John DeVillars, a former Massachusetts Secretary of Environment and regional EPA administrator who has strong connections to the conservation community. It was one of the first solar developers in the state to jump on the incentives that Massachusetts’ 2018 Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) program provides for dual-use solar projects. 

“Our motivation is as much for land protection and supporting community and agriculture, as it is clean energy,” notes DeVillars. “Agrivoltaics is a great chance to strengthen rural communities . . . and allow everyone to share in the benefits of a cleaner environment and locally produced, healthier food.” 

The Knowlton Farm deal involves a slew of parties: AES, a global energy company that owns the project; the Massachusetts Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture; the University of Massachusetts, which will study the impact of the systems on the farm’s crop yields and soil conditions; American Farmland Trust; and a farm consultant, Iain Ward, who BlueWave recruited to help develop the planting plans and serve as an advisor to Knowlton. AES provides Knowlton with lease payments and a stipend to cover his farming costs, which will eventually allow him to retire from carpentry and achieve his lifelong dream of farming full-time. 

Not all dual-use solar developers pay stipends and hire farming consultants. Others simply pay the farmer to lease the land. “BlueWave’s model is progressive,” says Ward. “It’s farmer-first, farmer-friendly . . . the spirit of what I believe dual-use was intended to be.” 

Ward is a cranberry grower and an evangelist for regenerative agriculture who views dual-use solar as an opportunity to pay farmers to experiment with growing crops in new ways. He launched his own consulting business, Solar Agricultural Services, a few years ago. Decked in jeans and T-shirt, boots, and a brown sun hat, Ward shows a visitor Knowlton’s second, much larger dual-use array, located in a former pasture down the road from the hayfield. The panels in both arrays are bifacial, he says, meaning they allow some sunlight to penetrate their surface and reflect off the ground, which provides the crops more sunlight. The field under this 11.5-acre array will become pasture for beef cows in a year or two. Knowlton will plant mainly forage grasses, with some radishes and sugar pumpkins to support soil health. The field is now planted with a cover crop of winter rye grass. 

Knowlton is especially excited about the cows. “We haven’t had animals for so long,” he said wistfully, recalling how he used to milk the cows with his father and grandfather every weekend and every day after work. “I’m looking forward to getting back to that.” 

Ward hopes the results from Knowlton Farm will help inform a national conversation that could spur greater adoption of dual-use solar. Research to date has largely been conducted in experimental settings. A University of Arizona study on cherry tomatoes and two types of peppers found that the crops did better because they were spared direct sun. Jalapeño peppers lost less water via transpiration, suggesting that growing crops under PV panels can save water in a hot, dry climate (Barron-Gafford et al. 2019).  

Unpublished research from the University of Massachusetts similarly found that the solar panels helped reduce heat stress and contribute to higher yields for crops like broccoli, Swiss chard, kale, and peppers, though shade decreased yield in some crops (Sandler, Mupambi, and Jeranyami 2019). An analysis by researchers in Japan found certain types of agrivoltaic systems worked even with shade-intolerant crops like corn (Sekiyama and Nagashima 2019). 

Dual-use solar is likely best suited for smaller projects in regions where competition for land is stiff, because the economics are difficult without incentives, and a tremendous amount of oversight and technical assistance is required to ensure that farm management plans are sound. Construction costs for dual-use solar are roughly 40 percent higher than for conventional solar, says Drew Pierson, head of sustainability at BlueWave. Raised canopies increase both materials and labor costs. Insurance costs are also higher because of ongoing activity underneath the panels. 

Massachusetts leads the nation in dual-use solar because of its SMART program, which was designed to add 3,200 MW of solar to the grid. Under SMART, dual-use projects are eligible for a base compensation rate of $0.14–$0.26 per kWh of electricity produced, depending on the project size and local utility, and they receive an additional $0.06 per kWh federal incentive. To date, 11 projects, totaling 23 MW, have met the state’s rigorous eligibility requirements. (Even with the incentives, says De Villars, “the economics are very, very challenging, to say the least.”) 

New Jersey passed a similar incentive to Massachusetts last year. New York scores solar projects better if they have agrivoltaic features, but it’s unclear whether that will help incentivize projects or simply hasten their permitting, says Pierson. Agrivoltaics are also being developed for pollinator fields and rangeland in the Midwest and West. Meanwhile, researchers in California are studying whether solar installations could keep fallow farmland from disappearing altogether. 

Agriculture and Climate Change 

Agriculture and associated land use changes such as deforestation produced an estimated 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Factor in related activities such as packaging and processing, says the FAO, and the food system accounts for 34 percent of all emissions—a figure expected to rise as global population soars. Even as it contributes to climate change, agriculture is vulnerable to climate impacts: hotter temperatures, droughts, pests, and flooding are affecting crop yields, livestock conditions, and other critical elements of a functioning food supply. Regenerative practices that restore ecosystem health and sequester carbon, such as no-till methods and use of cover crops, are increasingly touted as a way for farmers to build resilience and be part of the climate solution. 

Solar on Farmland in the West 

In the West, water—or lack of it—is emerging as a key driver for renewable energy siting on farmland. Severe drought linked to climate change is shrinking water supplies just as population growth is increasing demand. With the federal declaration of drought in the Colorado River Basin in 2021, farmers in central Arizona face steep cuts in their allotment of river water. California and Colorado are similarly struggling to balance agricultural water use, rising urban water demands, and shrinking resources. 

“There’s always been this idea that the best soil is what determines the best agricultural land. We’re in a new paradigm here, and the best soil without water is dirt,” notes Lorelei Oviatt, director of planning for Kern County, California. 

In an effort to gain control of dwindling supplies, California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) in 2014. One of the act’s key strategies is fallowing farmland. With farmland transitions on the table in California and other places in the drought-stricken West, the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy is researching sustainable futures for agriculture, and how to get from here to there, says Holway, the center’s director.  

Holway’s team is exploring how to facilitate voluntary transitions of agricultural land in a way that uses land markets, maintains agricultural economies, and keeps the most productive agriculture land in cultivation. The center is also investigating how to maximize ecosystem benefits and possibly sequester carbon on retired farmland. As part of this work, the Babbitt Center provided funding to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) to investigate the potential for solar development in the San Joaquin Valley. 

That region, which occupies the southern part of the state’s famously productive Central Valley, has the largest groundwater deficit in California and faces some of the worst impacts from overdraft, including land subsidence and drying wells, according to Ellen Hanak, vice president and director of the PPIC Water Policy Center. PPIC estimates that 10 to 20 percent of the valley’s farmland—500,000 to 1 million acres—will need to be retired to comply with the SGMA. 

“If we don’t plan how that transition happens, it’s going to have a billion-dollar economic impact,” says Holway. Home foreclosures, bankruptcies, and supply chain disruptions are among the cascading impacts that could ensue from haphazard land fallowing. PPIC is studying how solar development can facilitate the necessary agricultural retirement in a way that sustains income for farmers. The research is part of a larger study on climate-smart agricultural transitions that is looking at the benefits and costs of different land management options. PPIC is also exploring issues such as the air quality risks that arise from the dust, pests, and weeds that build up from different types of land fallowing, and the potential for winter rain-fed cropping. 

“We’re working with folks to look at some alternatives that could bring in revenues and avoid negative externalities, but also potentially generate some benefits, like soil carbon [storage], soil moisture retention, and habitat [protection]. Solar comes into this as one of the options that looks especially promising,” notes Hanak.  

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is also zeroing in on the San Joaquin Valley for renewable energy development. Its 2019 “Power of Place” report identified the San Joaquin as a promising location for the state to meet its renewable energy goals because it is more ecologically degraded than California’s inland deserts, where bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, and golden eagles still roam (Wu et al. 2019). California set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Additionally, it passed a law in 2018 requiring renewable energy resources to supply 100 percent of electricity by 2045.  

“TNC is obviously in favor of renewable energy development, but we’re very interested in rolling it out in ways that don’t harm existing habitat,” emphasizes Abigail Hart, project director in TNC’s California Water Program. “If you’re going to site renewable energy facilities on conservation land or agricultural land, then you need to make sure you’re doing it in places that aren’t critically important for some other reason like habitat,” confirms Jim Levitt, director of the International Land Conservation Network at the Lincoln Institute. “It’s important to be strategic.” 

Utility-scale solar is already underway in the San Joaquin Valley. Westlands Solar Park, one of the largest solar developments in the world, is under construction on 20,000 acres of former farmland that was contaminated with selenium in Fresno and King counties. The developer, CIM Group, plans to install at least 2,700 megawatts by the end of the decade, providing clean energy to more than 750,000 households. 

A smaller, 20 MW project was installed by E.ON Solar at Maricopa Orchards, a Kern County grower of almonds, oranges, and other crops. That project is part of a 6,000-acre habitat conservation plan devised by Maricopa Orchards and local officials; the plan allows solar development on 4,000 acres of farmland, but sets aside 2,000 acres as habitat for San Joaquin kit foxes, blunt-nosed leopard lizards, burrowing owls, and other at-risk species. “In some cases, land that has been out of production even for a couple of years can function as habitat for at-risk species,” explained Hart. The 2,000-acre set aside will allow for wildlife corridors on the property. The 20 MW array, which occupies 160 acres and is now owned by Dominion Energy of Virginia, is the first of multiple expected projects on the rest of the Maricopa parcel. Hart said that TNC looks to the deal “as a compelling example of how solar development could be done on impaired lands in a way that provides renewable energy and valuable habitat.”  

While wind and solar are high-value options for landowners, communities tend to question whether they provide “the same juice to the local economy” as housing or commercial development, says Hanak. Some communities, like San Bernardino County, have banned utility solar altogether. 

California’s solar tax exclusion, a statewide incentive passed in the early 2000s that prevents the installation of qualifying solar energy systems from affecting the assessment of a property, is one reason why communities fret the economics. It made sense for rooftop installations and smaller-scale projects, but does not work for today’s large-scale solar projects, observes Oviatt. Hanak agrees, noting that PPIC is investigating “the different ways to pay for solar so that it’s not coming at the expense of the coffers of a poor rural county.” 

There are other practicalities to consider. In Kern County, one of the largest in the valley, transmission capacity is a limiting factor, says Oviatt. Kern County has already developed 50,000 acres of solar, mostly on marginal lands. “We are now catching up with all of the solar that we have,” she says. Without additional transmission lines, farmers will not be able to sell their land to renewable energy developers. Kern County is therefore looking at other possible uses for retired agricultural land, including carbon capture and sequestration technologies.  

Path Forward 

Both dual-use and conventional solar development on farmland hold promise for helping individual states and the United States as a whole meet aggressive renewable energy goals. Solar on farmland cuts greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector and, when done right, can help conserve land and protect biodiversity and water resources. Jeremy McDiarmid, vice president of the New England Clean Energy Council, points out that solar can be an impermanent development strategy, unlike housing or commercial real estate. What communities need to do, he says, is “find the balance between preserving open space and developing clean energy resources that are going to . . . create local jobs and help meet climate targets.” 

American Farmland Trust is crafting a set of principles to guide siting of renewable energy on farmland in a way that protects farmers and, where farmland is still active, improves viability and productivity. Those principles also recommend making full use of locations like brownfields, abandoned mines, and urban rooftops. “There are plenty of options out there with limited land impacts,” says Haight. “However, we’re also aware that we will not be able to site everything on brownfields and within the built environment.” 

Cole sees an opportunity for engaging in conversations state by state to identify where the best farmland is, what agricultural communities’ needs are, and what each state’s solar and land protection goals are to develop state-specific guidelines and programs. 

Such conversations are just beginning in California, Massachusetts, and New York. In California, the Strategic Growth Council, a state agency, is funding PPIC’s climate-smart agricultural transition and solar research to help plan the San Joaquin Valley’s future. In Massachusetts, the Department of Energy Resources is studying the solar potential for the Commonwealth and will likely layer in both technical feasibility and competing land uses for biodiversity and open space protections, according to McDiarmid. And in New York State, Cornell Professor Max Zhang said his recent study on strategic land use analysis for solar energy development precipitated a meeting with state senators (Katkar et al. 2021). 

Meanwhile, Levitt thinks the agricultural sector could see additional disruptions in the next few decades. Severe water shortages in arid and semi-arid landscapes are one potential driver of change. The traditional dairy and meat industries could also be increasingly displaced by alternative products such as nut milks and synthetic meats. Such disruption could free up a substantial amount of land for regenerative farming, renewables development, carbon sequestration, aquifer recharging, and wildlife protection, particularly in the swath of the middle of the country that’s now used for pasturing livestock and growing the crops that feed them.  

“Just as change in the pattern of land use in California is emerging, these trends could alter longstanding patterns of land use across North America,” says Levitt. While powerful industrial agriculture associations will do what it takes to minimize disruption—as will states where agriculture is integral to identity, culture, and economics—Levitt says the potential for dramatic change is there, and the forces driving change may well intensify over time. 

As dual-use systems get up and running on Knowlton Farm and elsewhere, questions remain about how scalable dual-use solar will be across different geographies and farm systems. Scaling up conventional solar on retired farmland is more straightforward, but will likely be limited by such factors as local transmission capacity or economic incentives. Regardless, solar energy development on both working and non-working farmland is an important tool for confronting the climate crisis. The faster the solar industry can perfect systems that keep farmers on their land and agricultural production intact—or optimized for water sustainability—the better humanity’s chances for preserving a livable planet. 

Meg Wilcox is an environmental journalist covering climate change, environmental health, and sustainable food systems. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Scientific American, Next City, Smithsonian, Salon, Eater, Civil Eats, and other outlets. 

Lead image: Solar consultant Iain Ward stands among the agrivoltaic panels at Knowlton Farm in Grafton, Massachusetts. Credit: Meg Wilcox. 

References

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