Harrisburg – Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding not too long ago launched steering for landowners contemplating photo voltaic manufacturing on farms and in Pennsylvania’s rural communities.
The information outlines the Wolf Administration’s assist for applied sciences that create jobs and generate farm revenue with out compromising meals and fiber manufacturing. Photo voltaic power is a climate-smart expertise that achieves objectives whereas decreasing emissions and serving to to cut back the adverse results of local weather change.
“Pennsylvania’s farmland is a priceless useful resource for producing meals, defending the environment, and feeding our economic system,” stated Redding. “Photo voltaic power manufacturing has nice potential for producing electrical energy to energy farm operations and advance Pennsylvania’s transition to a clear power future. When correctly deliberate, well-placed and correctly upkeep, photo voltaic manufacturing doesn’t compromise or cut back priceless farm sources, fairly it enhances them.”
Points guiding enterprise choice making embody:
- Sustainable website choice prioritizes rooftops, parking tons or brownfields over agricultural or forest land, avoiding high quality land areas altogether.
- Upkeep that protects the soil and pollinators by way of native crops with out invasive species; offers precedence to grazing in comparison with slicing, paying farmers for the service; and embody decommissioning plans to totally restore any land upon completion of a challenge.
- Integrating power and agricultural manufacturing in a method that’s complementary fairly than aggressive.
The steering outlines further issues for farm homeowners together with the influence of photo voltaic manufacturing on the farm’s enrollment in preferential tax applications, preserved farm standing, native zoning, environmental permits and conservation plans and different points.
The whole information, together with an inventory of often requested questions and extra sources for going photo voltaic, may be discovered on the division’s web site, agriculture.pa.gov.
For extra data on climate-smart methods for presidency, group leaders, agriculture and different companies, go to the Pennsylvania Local weather Motion Plan. Discover extra data, funding, and different sources for making your farm extra productive and sustainable on the State Conservation Fee’s pages at agriculture.pa.gov.
