Sheep grazing near solar panels in Haskell, Texas. — Reuters
FOR the first time in four generations, the Raines family in Texas did not plant a single cotton seed last year.
Instead of ploughing fields, Chad Raines parked his tractor and leased most of his farmland to a neighbour.
His focus shifted to a new, more profitable venture – transporting his flock of sheep to solar farms, where they graze on the grass growing around the glistening panels.
The deals he secured with five solar companies for this natural lawn-mowing service proved more lucrative than cotton farming.
“Cotton prices have been terrible for so long, I had to do something different,” said Raines, 52.
As US farmers struggle with mounting debt and declining incomes, some are swapping traditional crops for livestock grazing contracts with solar farms to stay afloat.
Raines estimated that had he planted cotton last year, he would have faced a US$200,000 (RM885,000) loss. Farming sheep for meat alone would not have been sustainable either.
Instead, through solar grazing payments and lamb meat sales to a restaurant supplier, he turned a profit of about US$300,000 (RM1.3mil).
“Every expense I have, from labour costs to the US$2,000 (RM8,850) a month I spend on food for my guard dogs, is covered by solar,” said Raines, whose son has now returned to the farm to help with the business.
However, such opportunities may soon diminish.
US President Donald Trump issued an executive order that, among other measures, halted funding for clean energy-related projects, potentially affecting incentives linked to the former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The IRA funding has been frozen as part of the administration’s broad review of government grants and loans.
Although a recent court ruling led to some funds being released, many organisations report ongoing difficulties in accessing them.
“Farmers and ranchers should not have to rely on far-left climate programmes for grazing land or ‘economic lifelines’,” a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesman said in an email, adding that the agency is prioritising rural prosperity and cutting spending unrelated to agriculture.
US cotton futures have plummeted by nearly 40% over the past two years due to oversupply and weakened global demand.
Exports have also dropped sharply, losing ground to cheaper Brazilian cotton and declining demand from China, according to USDA data.
“The last three years have been brutal for Texas cotton growers,” said Louis Barbera, managing partner at cotton brokerage VLM Commodities.
Overall, US farm income is projected to improve this year, driven by high livestock prices and an expected surge in government aid through the American Relief Act of 2025, according to a USDA forecast in early February.
However, when adjusted for inflation, corn and soybean farm incomes are predicted to reach their lowest levels since 2010, even if farmers receive that aid, said Jennifer Ifft, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University.
Debt-reliant farmers were slower to repay loans in 2024, and an increasing number are selling assets to stay solvent, data from the Federal Reserve Banks of Kansas City and Minneapolis shows.
“Income diversification during agricultural downturns can mean saving the farm,” said Tait Berg, a senior agricultural risk specialist at the Minneapolis Fed.
For many farmers facing steep seed costs and rising equipment repair bills, solar land-management contracts offer a crucial financial lifeline.
More than a dozen farmers interviewed said these deals allow them to turn a profit instead of taking on extra jobs or side businesses to cover expenses.
Sheep grazed on over 52,200ha of US solar panel sites last October, up from just 6,000ha in 2021, according to the non-profit American Solar Grazing Association.
The number of sheep on solar sites rose from 80,000 to over 113,000 between January and October last year.
Though still a fraction of the nation’s 5.05 million sheep and lamb herd, this increase has helped reverse a decline in flock numbers for the first time since 2016, said Peter Orwick, executive director of the American Sheep Industry Association.
The US solar industry expanded during Trump’s first term, with further acceleration after Biden’s 2022 law provided subsidies for clean-energy projects, said Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.
“The sector expects to continue growing under Trump’s second term,” Hopper said.
In a statement, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said, “Ultimately, President Trump will cut programmes that do not serve the interests of the American people and keep programmes that put America First.”
In states such as Indiana and Illinois, solar expansion has drawn young farmers into the industry, allowing them to enter agriculture without the burden of high land and equipment costs, according to analysts.
In Virginia, Marcus and Jess Gray postponed their plans for traditional farming after securing contracts with Dominion Energy and Urban Grid. They now manage a 900-head flock across 1,600ha of solar developments.
“It’s steady income, where we get to set and negotiate the price, rather than taking our grain to the local elevator and being told what it’s worth,” said Jess Gray, 39.
Sheep grazing offers significant cost savings for solar operators once a site is established.
Initial capital expenses can be high, depending on location, said Reagan Farr, CEO of Tennessee-based solar firm Silicon Ranch.
Some sites require well drilling for water access or more advanced gating systems for sheep containment.
Still, managed grazing reduces operating costs by about 20%, Farr said.
“The economics work when you’re not trucking sheep across the country or hauling in water,” he said. “It’s much easier and less costly to pay shepherds a living wage than to hire someone to sit on a lawnmower for 10 hours a day.”
Rising demand for solar grazing prompted Silicon Ranch, partly owned by Shell, to launch its own sheep-breeding programme in Georgia to support local farmers.
For Raines and his family, the decision to switch from cotton to solar grazing was purely financial.
“If I had kept to crop farming, our family farm would be out of business,” he said. — Reuters
