It can be solar power AND agriculture—"rather than solar power OR agriculture

It can be solar power AND agriculture?"rather than solar power OR agriculture

By Matt Beasley

The company I work for, Silicon Ranch, commissioned the first utility-scale solar power farm in Tennessee in 2012. Since that initial milestone, Silicon Ranch has worked collaboratively with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and more than 50 local power companies to commission more than 50 energy infrastructure projects across the Tennessee Valley. 

We’re on pace to invest more than $2 billion, and contribute millions more in taxes, all across this region, and it’s been incredibly gratifying to witness how our investments are bringing a much-needed economic shot in the arm to many rural communities throughout the valley.

As proud as I am of the meaningful work we do every day to invest in rural communities and supply affordable, clean, and reliable energy to our utility partners to serve homes and businesses across the region, I’m equally proud of the agribusiness we’ve built over the past several years to care for our land and to create opportunities for aspiring farmers. 

Through our agribusiness, Regenerative Energy, we employ farmers and shepherds to graze livestock on the land that we own, enabling them to produce grassfed meats while we improve the health of our soil, care for our land and generate clean, renewable energy, all on the same piece of property. 

Given our deep commitment to agriculture, Silicon Ranch naturally supports a wide range of agricultural groups and causes, including Future Farmers of America (FFA). We were again proud to serve as a title sponsor of last year’s Future Farmers of America Ham Breakfast held at the Tennessee State Fair in Lebanon in August, where to my surprise and disappointment, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins devoted her entire keynote address to criticize the solar industry for “wasting and replacing” farmland. 

Unfortunately, this claim—that solar power presents a legitimate threat to agriculture—has become a deeply politicized talking point, but I believe it’s important for folks to have access to facts based in reality, not rhetoric from Washington. 

As part of her statement, Rollins noted that “within the last 30 years, Tennessee alone has lost over 1.2 million acres of farmland and is expected to lose 2 million acres by 2027,” implying that solar power is the culprit for this loss of farmland and the biggest threat the agricultural community faces today. While the loss of farmland in our state is indeed concerning to us all, the claim that this loss is the result of solar development is flagrantly misleading. 

The figure Rollins quoted can also be found in a 2023 study commissioned by the Tennessee General Assembly and conducted by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR). TACIR found that between 1997 and 2017, Tennessee lost 1.1 million acres, or 9.3 percent, of the state’s farmland. Contrary to Rollins’s suggestion, however, the commission revealed that this loss did not result from solar power projects, but rather from other forms of development such as shopping centers, subdivisions, and warehouses.

In fact, the TACIR study concluded that even at the most ambitious deployment of solar to meet TVA’s target of securing 10 gigawatts by 2035 (as documented in its Integrated Resource Plan), solar would still occupy far less than one percent of Tennessee’s farmland.

The TACIR report goes on to state that for land used to site solar projects, agrivoltaics—the practice of combining energy generation and agricultural production on the same piece of property, a practice pioneered by Silicon Ranch in 2018—provides a viable way to develop solar “without taking farmland out of production.” 

My team and I share Rollins’s dedication to Tennessee’s agricultural past, present and future. After all, Tennessee is our home. That’s why we’ve worked to create an industry-leading brand of agrivoltaics that enable us to generate both critically needed energy and agricultural opportunity, in the form of both healthier pastures and career possibilities for aspiring farmers who lack access to land.  

Despite the rhetoric from Washington, we at Silicon Ranch remain steadfast in our mission: to create new opportunities for farmers, to steward the land we own, and to prove that American energy dominance and productive agriculture are not competing priorities, but complementary pursuits.

Matt Beasley is Chief Commercial Officer of Nashville-based Silicon Ranch (www.siliconranch.com) and manages the interface between Silicon Ranch and external stakeholders, including customers, local communities, and the broader industry, with additional focus on business development and corporate strategy. Beasley is also a member of the Company’s Board of Directors.
This column was originally published in The Tennessee Lookout (www.tennesseelookout.com) and is reprinted with their permission.

Q1 2026