In a world afire in climate crisis and simultaneously hungry for food and energy, agrivoltaics—the pairing of solar panels with farming and ranching — has been hailed as a miracle solution. But this encouraging technological fix is also a political battleground over land, labor, and power.
Proponents of agrivoltaics — sometimes called agriphotovoltaics — often present this as a “win-win”: fields that feed people and generate clean electricity. Indeed, among others, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory highlights the fact agrivoltaic systems can boost land productivity, combine habitat with electricity, and even make microclimates better for plants. But the reality isn’t so simple. A critical political-economy study by Rubén Vezzoni in Sustainability Science warns that the uncritical deployment of agrivoltaics risks cementing capital-intensive industrial agriculture rather than transforming it.
Vezzoni argues that without well-tailored policies, agrivoltaic revenue may reinforce land concentration and profit-driven agriculture instead of supporting sustainable, ecological farming.
A parallel strand of scholarship calls this out directly. Timothy Coburn, et al. at Colorado State University explored “Equity and Justice Implications” of agrivoltaics. Their conclusion is blunt: Both small-scale farmers and local communities risk being marginalized in projects that are scaled by solar capital.
A European study across Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands likewise focuses on inequality: Interviews with experts show that benefits often favor large-scale farmers and investors, while smallholders and residents are excluded from decision-making. If we do not embed justice in agrivoltaics from the ground up, we risk recreating the same disenfranchisement seen in other energy transitions.
M. Taylor, et al. go further. The team frames agrivoltaic deployment with what they label the three pillars of energy justice: recognition (who is seen), procedural (who decides), and distributive (who benefits). Their work in Massachusetts, Japan, and Australia shows that projects lacking this framework may reinforce existing inequities, rather than dismantle them.
A U.S. analysis published in Energy Policy found that definitions of agrivoltaics vary wildly by state. Without coherent, enforceable regulation, agrivoltaic projects risk being captured by the logic of extractive infrastructure — not community regeneration.
In their study, Jessica Guarino and Tyler Swanson highlight the need for legal reforms, especially around solar grazing (raising livestock under panels), zoning, tax rules, and community contracts. Without robust frameworks, developers could dominate while farming communities are left with little power, they say.
Like much else with American agriculture, to be truly successful, agricvoltaics should not just be technological. It should be about who gets to farm, who gets to profit, and who is seen as a legitimate stakeholder. If agribusiness captures most agrivoltaic revenue, what we’ll really be doing is accelerating the already profoundly dangerous financialization of farmland.
This risks displacing smallholders and, ironically, locking in unsustainable, carbon-intensive practices that solar is supposed to help end. Will we use agrivoltaics to empower communities, or will we fast-track yet more capital accumulation under another greenwash label?
A just transition in agrivoltaics would begin by helping the communities that have historically been pushed to the margins. Black farmers dispossessed by discriminatory lending, Latino farmworkers kept in low-wage seasonal jobs, Indigenous people whose lands were seized for energy and irrigation projects should not once again treated as an afterthought.
Federal and state programs could earmark agrivoltaic grants specifically for socially disadvantaged farmers, allowing them to co-own the solar arrays sited on their fields rather than leasing their land to outside developers at a fraction of the eventual revenue. Cooperative financing structures should be created so that tenant farmers, who often lack the capital to invest in infrastructure, can still participate. A just transition should not rely on benefits trickling down to people who were excluded from decision-making. It should guarantee direct, durable economic participation from the start.
For farmworkers, a just transition could help turn agrivoltaics into a platform for upward mobility rather than just another source of exploitation. Installing, monitoring, and maintaining solar-agricultural systems requires year-round technical labor — electrical work, data monitoring, shade-management, and equipment upkeep. Since I’m dreaming, with targeted apprenticeships and other training programs, these jobs could become stable, middle-income employment pathways for workers who have spent decades exposed to heat stress, wage theft, and chemical hazards.
A Roadmap
To avoid a co-opted agrivoltaic world, we need bold policies led by the grassroots. As with so many things right now, achieving what I’ve included below depends on the science-deniers in Congress and the White House being tossed out of office.
Adopt energy-justice frameworks. Policymakers should require community participation, fair benefit-sharing, and long-term leases that protect farmers — not just developers.
Reinvest agrivoltaic revenue in agroecology. Following Vezzoni’s insight, a portion of agrivoltaic profits should fund ecological farming transitions, soil restoration, and local food systems.
Standardize regulations. States and the federal government should define the parameters of agrivoltaics policy clearly, regulate zoning, tax, and contracts to reduce land speculation.
Support research that centers people. University projects — like UMass Amherst’s dual-use solar research — should emphasize not just crop yields, but how agrivoltaic systems impact local economies, labor, and decision-making.
Prioritize frontline and marginalized farmers. Access to special funding, technical assistance, and cooperatives should be made available to small-scale and historically marginalized farmers.
Agrivoltaics offers real climate potential: more efficient land use, microclimate cooling, extra revenue for farmers, carbon reductions, clean electricity. But without justice at its core, it will simply be a new frontier for land commodification and inequality. The battle is not just over kilowatt-hours and acreage. Under a truly just energy transition, agrivoltaics shouldn’t just feed the grid, but also economic democracy.
