MSU Extension MI Ag Ideas to Grow With

Good evening and welcome everyone to MI Ag Ideas to Grow With Virtual Conference, sponsored by Michigan State University Extension and AgriStrategies, LLC. My name is Charles Gould and I'm a bioenergy educator with the Agriculture and Agribusiness Institute and Michigan State University Extension. Again, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the Farmer experience grazing cattle and sheep and solar projects session. We've got a lot of information that we want to cram into 60 minutes, so we're going to move along rather quickly here. I'd also like to point out that Michigan State University extension programs are available to all people to participate in. I'd also like to recognize our sponsor AgriStrategies, LLC for their sponsorship of MI Ag Ideas to Grow With. Due to their support, we're able to offer this event at no charge to participants. AgriStrategies, LLC helps young or retiring farmers and agribusinesses with financial management decisions. Please note on the slide right here that every consultation scheduled or just an inquiry via phone, text or email will result in a donation to the Michigan FFA Foundation. I'll put their link in the chat box here in just a minute. This evening, we've got an all star cast here. We have Brooke and Chauncey Watson from Watson Farms and Illinois Solar Grazing. We have Paul Knowlton from Knowlton Farms and we have Angie Burke from Pivot Energy. It should be noted that Angie was awarded the 2024 North American Agrivoltaic Champion Award for leadership in implementing Agrivoltaic in Pivot Energy Solar Projects. Each presenter is going to introduce themselves during their presentation. for just a minute here and provide some context around why we're meeting here tonight. There's a lot of people in Michigan that think that it's agriculture or solar. That's not the case as we're going to learn tonight and also Wednesday night when we hear our vegetable grower. Instead, think about it. Think about it in terms of Ag and solar. In other words, in thinking about solar projects, let's led with agriculture. As you listen to each presenter, I'd like you to think about how what they're saying can apply to your situation, whether it's a farm, whether you're a township official, planning and zoning, a consultant, academia, or a commodity group. As you listen to what each one of them say, think about how that applies to your situation and what influence you can have or what impact you can have in implementing agrovoltaics, in your sphere of influence. Now let's just jump into tonight's presentations. If you have any questions during the presentations, please type them into the Q&A and we're going to go through all three presenters and then we'll answer questions after the last presenter. First, we're going to hear from Brooke and Chauncey followed by Paul and then from Angie. And then as I mentioned, we'll answer questions. Brook and Chauncey, the floor is yours. Great. Thank you. This is just our fun little title slide. You can see one of our projects here in Sauk Village, Illinois, which is actually Cook County, which is the same county that Chicago is in. So love Charles intro and setting it up for us, this really is the blend of solar and agriculture, and you can do this anywhere. It's not just in traditional farm areas. It also is in more urban and rural settings. So if you want to go to the next slide, Charles, we're a small farmers in northern Illinois with row crops, hey, small beef cattle feed lot, about 500 use. We do directed to consumer lamb and beef sales along with selling the commercial market. We're fortunate to live in an area where we have access to cheap feedstuffs with seed corn silage and distillers grains. As I produce hay for the horse market and usually by first crop and other hay that's not that pretty looking, I feed to my sheep. That's why I have sheep. I've had sheep since I've been 10-years-old. So and what's also interesting is that we don't own a lot of land. You know, we do rent a lot of the ground that we do hay or traditional row crops on. And, you know, we're farmers that wear a lot of hats. I actually also work full time off of the farm. And then Chauncey also mentioned, but to help pay the bills, we also have this commercial landscape and snowplow business that has been around for longer even than Chauncey and his family has been doing sheep. So we share the plight that many of you probably, if you're a farmer, that it's hard nowadays to just be a full time farmer. And when Chauncey and I got married three years ago, I was starting to I was already a little bit part of the farm business helping out with the direct to consumer meat opportunities. But we started to hear more about solar grazing and it actually came up because there was rumors that a utility scale site was going to be built in Dekalb County, which is our home county. Um, and now utility scale site still hasn't materialized. But as we started to think about what an incredible opportunity that would be if we could take our sheep to do the vegetation management on a utility scale. So 100 or even thousand acres site, you know, what a great opportunity that would be for us to diversify our farm business and also create a legacy as it would continue to evolve. I mentioned that we're still waiting for that utility scale site to be built here in DeKalb County. But the approach that we took was we didn't want to sit around and wait and see what might happen. We saw that there was an opportunity in Illinois as community size sites. Smaller sites were starting to pop up. And we decided, you know what, we want to go for this and become the best shepherds and solar grazers that we can on these maybe smaller community scale sites so that when the opportunity for the big utility scale site came around, there'd be no doubt that we were qualified and the best fit for the job. So we work together. You know, Chauncey is the experienced livestock man, the sheep farmer. So he manages our flock, our animal husbandry and our grazing plants where I take my off farm experience in marketing and sales, and I manage a lot of the communication with our energy partners or other um, contractors and then also help with reviewing contracts and putting together our proposals. And then also I do the documentation, taking the pictures, but there's the fun pictures like you see of our sheep grazing. But there's also the other important parts of documentation with what type of vegetation growth is happening on the site. Then how that plays all up in reporting. In Illinois, actually, the Illinois Power agency if you are going to be solar grazing and have Sheep as vegetation, there are some sites that do require additional reporting on that. That's an important part of our partnership too is making sure that our energy partners are getting the credit that they deserve and that we as farmers deserve for doing these unique partnerships and wonderful collaborations on solar sites. One of the first things when we decided, you know what, we're going to go for this. We're going to start our new business in solar grazing. One of the first resources we found was the American Solar Grazing Association. We'd really encourage you all if you're interested in learning more about this, that's a great place to start. Chauncey really dove in and has taken advantage of all the opportunities that come through membership with webinars, and they save everything, so you can watch webinars from years ago, which I think Chauncey has spent a fair amount of tractor time. Listening to that. Listening to the stuff that maybe was prevalent seven years ago has just as many good nuggets and suggestions for how to manage or approach this as the current conversations that happen on a more frequent basis. There's also a chance to add a map dot to their solar grazing map where you can share a little bit about your enterprise and what type of setup you have and if you're looking to get into solar grazing. Actually, that has produced a couple of leads for us. So we really feel like it's one of the best return on investments we've ever had with managing, just with the paying for membership and what we've been able to get out of it. It really, I would say, we had two years of intentionally seeking out opportunities for solar grazing and building our business before it actually materialized in an opportunity to get sheep on the ground. Last year we grazed 140 acres that came across six community solar sites that were actually in five different counties. We've yet to actually graze in our home county, which is DeKalb County. But we grazed in five others across northern Illinois and even down a little bit in Central Illinois. Um, you know, we established we kind of figured out what our range would be. We were willing to go about 100 miles in any direction. On average, the sites that we manage are the distance of 85, which might not be ideal for all farmers. And in addition to grazing the sites, you know, Chauncy's landscaping business really allowed for the perfect opportunity for us to manage the whole vegetation plan for the sites that we're working with. Um, and so that includes doing perimeter mowing, sometimes some cleanup mowing that might be inside the fence or, you know, other areas that are on the exterior that also need to be managed. And so we can be a one stop shop and really a service provider in addition to, you know, being the farmers and the boots on the ground for all of our partners. But we did want to highlight that you do really have to have in addition to a farming mindset, like a service provider. Mindset. A lot of the time your partners won't be in the same state as you. They maybe have only seen the site a couple of times and so you're really in charge of their eyes and ears for what's happening and what's needed. Let's see. I think we're good, Charles, if you want to go to the next slide. We just wanted to quickly lay out for those of you that might be thinking about getting into this, there's two ways you can do it. There's the approach that we've taken where we are a subcontractor or service provider doing the vegetation management. But if you're considering taking part of land you own and leasing it to solar or maybe you have a landlord if you're a tenant that's thinking about doing that, it's actually a great opportunity for you to get additional revenue, not just from the solar lease, but also that you could be hired on to be the vegetation manager either through grazing or the mowing contracts. Again, it might not be everyone's best fit to do what we're doing going around to lots of different community size sites. Our smallest site is three acres, our largest is 40 right now, but it's been a really tremendous land access opportunity for us that we wouldn't have had otherwise. Chauncey, do you want to talk a little about site sizes? Well, we we haven't gotten any utility yet. We're hoping that happens, but we're in the community size right now. We're doing the smaller sites and we're traveling for it. This is a service we charge for and it's some work, but we're making it work and it's taking off. And so you'll also too and Angie, when you hear her speak, the energy companies will talk in megawatts, but as farmers, we talk in acres. So how many acres is the site versus how many megawatts is the site. And, if this is your first time hearing definitions like words like community size, where utility size, a community solar site is considered to be 100 acres or less, whereas utility size could be hundreds or thousands of acres. But there are two regional differences, and that's why I'm so grateful that Charles has put this together. In the Midwest, you know, solar grazing is still developing. It came up on the coast and where one of the common practices is to be leaving sheep on site year round, which isn't an option in the Midwest. We also have different seed mixes. The Midwest is adopting many of the pollinator seed and native prairie plant mixes, which is a little bit different than other parts of the country. These are all some considerations that need to also play into your what you're thinking about charging and how you're managing the site. So if you want to go to the next side, Charles. Um the number of sheep per acre, it varies wildly with the vegetation. On the first year, it might not be established well, and it's going to be a lower number than it will in year two, three, four, et cetera. You're going to have to before you get all your math and how many sheep you need, you need to look at the ground conditions and see what you're dealing with. Um, different forage types and soil types and all that takes into account. There are some sites that will let you do sustained grazing, so it's a lower density sheep stocking number per acre for a longer period of grazing time where there's other companies that prefer you to a very high density in a very short period of time. So it's important to talk with your energy companies and see what their preferences and what their needs are with the site. Um, quickly because I know we're already running out of time and we saw some other good things we wanted to share. We just listed out there supplies that you need to think about on site are how you're going to handle water, having your mineral available if you're going to use handling equipment. We haul water to all our site, so I'm hauling water 100 miles in IBC tanks, and they use less than I originally thought because the green grass has a lot of water in it, so they don't go through as much water as I fared, but that's something to consider when you're figuring how much to charge. Also use trail cameras that we fix on the water tank so we could always be monitoring the water level and then we see our sheep daily. That's a good way to just have an overview of the site. We listed herding dogs and livestock guardian dogs. We have a border collie who's been instrumental in us managing our sheep movements from site to site. We haven't had any sites where we've needed to leave LGDs, but those are industry standards that should be familiar to your energy companies and should be allowed. But just make sure you're having that conversation with any partners on the front end. We don't lamb on site because our sites are far, far away, but we consider it if it was close and it was the right site. Every site most of the sites we had, I actually picked up more sheep than I dropped off because we had some Mopses had a very ambitious feeder lamb that we had some lambs that little out of season. But that fine. Yeah. It might be different if you are closer or if it's land you already managed. That's up to each farmer about if you want a lambing consideration. It's important to ask about the seed mix. I mentioned most of the seed mixes are going to be in the Midwest, probably a pollinator variety, which maybe isn't the best to count on finishing your lambs with that are going to be sold to consumer. But just having an awareness and if you have any questions, your extension specialists are great resources on the seed mixes. One thing we've noticed is when you're talking with energy partners, everyone talks about what the vegetation is going to be like or what they envision it in three years. But in your first year on the site, when the seeding still getting established, it's going to look a lot different. So just being realistic and having good communication with your energy partners about what the site vegetation is actually coming up and looks like is really important. Vegetation will change as years go past because the first year is not going to be terribly established and the needs are going to go up for cheap per acre. Yeah. Then lastly, what do you charge? That's the magic question, right? We just want to reiterate do not do this for free. You are providing a service. If you approach it trying to do it for free or even a really low price, you are probably going to end up in the wrong side of the equation and not be able to afford to do it or to have sheep. There is real cost and value to the labor you're providing to the land stewardship. It's hard work. Yeah. And so you also have to factor in things like insurance. Trucking. Trucking. And again, that admin fee with reporting is also ways you're contributing to the success of your sites and an important thing you need to account for. I would really consider being full service, doing the mowing for the exteriors, if you need to do inside the fence mowing, if there's weeds, doing the spring, consider doing all be useful to the energy companies will be better off for you. So one site we did there was a lot of garbage left from construction, we picked it up and we charged them. It was we they needed to be done and we did it because we were the men on the ground. All right. Then, Charles, if you could show our last slide, our key takeaways is really to know your worth and know your cost. This is something that we're navigating right now in year two with interest in what our services cost and that there are people that are looking to do it for lower than what we can. And if that's the case, then that's great. But we're walking that hard line of we know what the value is to us and where the costs need to be for it to be worth us having this as part of our farm business. This is a great. Let's help each other out with colleagues, not competitors. If this keeps growing like it could, there's going to be a pretty big pie to share, so let's help each other out. Let's not bid all the profit out of this like farmers love to do with everything we do. Be willing to say yes and take a risk and do some of these faraway sites if they can pencil out for you and you don't have to say yes to everything, say no, if they don't make sense. Really try to be useful to the energy company. If there is damaged panels, tell them about it, if there's damaged wires, if anything, help them out, and that's how you become a good client to them and you can make this work long term and justify what we charge. So yeah, these were some great resources. If you're just starting out, I already mentioned the American Solar Grazing Association. I do want to mention United Agriboltaics, Heartland Alliance, which is a farmers first organization. Check them out right now. They're helping Michigan farmers as we speak, to be able to scale up and have the resources to be able to get into this type of work. And then American Sheep Industry with ASI, American Land Board is another great resource. And if I gotten any Illinois friends out here, this is a new working group. We've started the Illinois Agriboltis Network. So with that, we'll turn it over to the next presenter. Thank you, guys. All right, Paul, you're up. All right. You hear me okay? Yep. Okay, great. Yeah, I'm Paul Knowlton and I'm the owner operator of Knowlton Farms in Grafton, Massachusetts. I'm fifth generation working the property here. We did dairy from 1910 up to 90 about 95 in the mid 90s, it was just it petered out. Before that, we had done it was vegetables and even some orchard stuff. After that point, we moved into just doing some hay and miscellaneous type things. And it became evident that things weren't going to that finances were tough. How would you say it? So the idea of doing the solar was very interesting and we took it on, and it's been working well for us. The disappointment with the regular ground mountains, of course, the property is used up doing that. So when the agro voltaic idea came about, I was really, really keen on that. And we developed that system where we have the elevators and ours are quite elevated. We're ten feet to the bottom to our bottom leading edge, which allowed for me to run equipment through, whether I'm doing crops or our big array, which is about 15 acres is for cattle. And we're grazing cattle in there and raising cattle to go to the, you know, grass fed beef market and we do that we do that as a retail. And we also have a 3.5 acre that we're doing crops underneath, basically row crops underneath in around, which has been working out really well for us. It's been as they said, a partnership with the company and the utility and, you know, the state, the town, everybody else. But I can say, excuse me, from experience, that it's worked out very well for all, and we're finding that the cows really thrive underneath it. They like having the shade. The funny looking trees don't seem to bother them in the least. And it's it's worked out well. Having the, you know, the economics of it, of course, is always a key player. We have you know, having a little bit of year round income has done wonders. And plus, getting the animals back on the farm has been a delight. Having something that it was my childhood and when they left, it was disappointing. And having animals back has really been a pleasure. So we've built the infrastructure here and they say, shelter and we put in a couple of wells, we drilled some regular wells to have some irrigation for the crops and obviously water for the cows. And we maintain the rest of it as traditional, and we've been working in and around it now for about three years and things really worked out well. Been very good. You say, there's a shot of doing some retail, bringing it out and having a new product. It's actually something new for our farm, in changing with the times and working our way along. There you go get the rot crops in between. It's the shade hasn't been an issue. We did a long term study through one of the local universities that did a study for three years in regard to shade, the whole shooter match with moisture rainfall, so forth, and so on. And we found that it's been working very well. And it's sometimes even a benefit to have them in the shade. Some plants enjoy a little bit of partial shade and it protects them from a droughty sun, you know, too much sun and too much rain also. So it's kind of balanced out the yield. We haven't got the final results back for the three year test for them. I'm kind of confident that that's what it's going to show because that's what I found when we were harvesting. So it's been very interesting. I wanted to thank you for putting this together to spread the word. It's a very interesting concept, and for small farm, it's been a real lifeline and been a pleasure to see it happen and see it work. Thank you, Charles. Thank you, Paul. Good evening all. I'm Angie Burke with Pivot Energy. I am our director of O&M operations and maintenance. That means that about half of my day is spent on solar technical asset management and about half of my day is spent thinking about the vegetation and the area beneath the panels and how we can really be good stewards of the land. At Pivot Energy, we are actually using solar grazing as our standard. Next slide, please. We are a nationwide IPP or independent power producer. Pivot is focused on that community solar garden scale of sites. We're talking anywhere 3-50 up to about 100 acres per site. We're currently active in all of the blue highlighted states here, and that map is changing day by day as different policies and other things are changing and evolving. Next slide. For pivot energy for our sites, we are committed to a 100% dual use portfolio of sites. 100% of our ground mount arrays employ either habitat enhancement, cropping configurations or solar grazing. Habitat enhancement sites are you might hear of them as pollinator friendly sites. We like to go a little bit further than that, though. We don't approach these as set it and forget it and just let the flowers be for pollinators. We really go an extra step further and focus on endangered and at risk species, as well as native seed cultivation in cases where that might make sense with our partners. Um, on our solar plus cropping sites, we have about seven of these sites right now that are either under construction or active. And these are a range of sites across multiple states, including one really exciting feature site here in Colorado, where we have actually installed subsurface drip irrigation to help to maintain the water rights of the land owner, as well as irrigate that crop and really make for a profitable parcel for our farm partner. And most excitingly, though, we use solar grazing, again, as our standard, and we're employing this on 98% of our sites all across the country. Next, please. We use solar grazing because there are so many benefits and so many exciting opportunities here. Really from site prep through operations all the way through towards the end of life of the solar array, we love, love, love working with our solar grazing partners. We are more often than not, we're now removing the seeding scope from our construction partners and relying on our landowners, our tenant farmers, and our grazing partners to help us with that site prep because we understand topsoil is black gold and we want to make sure that we're preceding the site and really setting it up for good success and excuse me, establishment over those first three seasons. We also are employing grazing as our standard because throughout the operational term, we are finding that this is cost effective and cost competitive to more traditional turf grass and mowing activities. It's still effective. These sheep are really built for this and really do keep the vegetation at a reasonable height that keeps the panels from being shaded. Ultimately, because they're shorter stature and they're just going about their business, this is really a low risk option for us and we're finding that this most typically, it's actually resulting in a better maintained sites, but also lower risk for kicking up rocks that might hit the panels and things like that. The sheep don't really kick up rocks when they're going through and grazing. We're also defaulting to grazing because in the long term, we are really committed to strengthening those rural economies and really focusing in on how we can support farm viability in the long run a little selfishly, we enjoy purchasing a lot of different farm products from our grazing partners as well. Next, Now, solar grazing from the solar asset owner perspective, it's not all perfect. We do need to reset expectations with our neighbors and with our asset managers. This is more so a prairie grazing configuration. It is not a perfectly mowed and trimmed lawn, we do still need to deal with weeds. We might have occasional herbicide applications, we might have other hand removal methods that we need to employ and we do still need to take care of those perimeters and easements that Brook was mentioning earlier. One more click, I think, Charles. Internally as well, this looks very different from sending out some people on mowers. And really, it's been actually a delight to train up my team and really educate them on what it means to have sheep on site instead of mowers. And I think having photos like this and having site visits that include livestock, it's really actually brought a lot more ownership and pride to my team members, and they're really excited to manage sites that have solar grazing. It's a much richer story and a much more enjoyable day today to have sheep instead of mowing. Next. So those challenges, we're happy to overcome them, and ultimately, that is because we really appreciate our farmers. We understand that folks who work in acres and not ours are really important for our food future as a country, as well as for maintaining our sites and keeping them really healthy and operating well for us. So at Pivot obviously are very proud to work with Brook and Chauncey on a number of our Illinois sites. We also on the right hand side, you see the rest of my team with Tom, one of our grazers here in Colorado. Um, and these personal stories and personal connections are so important to us. You know, getting a photo from Brook or from Tom from a site visit is so much more enjoyable and really again, gives us that connection and keeps us really successful in operating kind maximum energy and egg production on our sites. And last slide here, I will just generally plug that pivot energy as much as we're really happy and proud to lead the charge with agri voltaics. We also want others to adopt this. I think we have proven and shown that we can do this at scale. We can do this at standard. But if you are in any way involved in agri voltaics as a landowner, a tenant farmer, or another potential grazing or farm partner, our legal team is offering up free legal services for anyone who's engaged in Agra voltaics in any way. So please feel free to jot down that email address. Otherwise, on the last slide here, I have my contact info as well, and you're welcome to reach out to me with questions anytime. Thank you. All right, Brook and Chauncey, Paul and Angie, thank you for this information. We do have some questions in the Q&A in Q and A here, Okay. Looks like Brooke, you're answering one of the questions here. Let me just go ahead and read it. It said, Why do solar companies in Southeast Michigan lock land owners out of their land once the rays are built? They also have no understanding of the soil food web and improving soil under the panels. Robust fungi in the soil is the fastest way to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. I think if we were to toss this back to Angie, well, I'll do that. Yeah. So let's see, from the solar asset owner perspective, there are really robust requirements and considerations for site access and safety. I think the best advice I might give is if you're a landowner or the existing tenant farmer on a parcel where solar is being developed, um, do your best to ask for essentially first of refusal for vegetation management services. We really regularly do this with our land owners and with the existing tenant farmers as a way to continue that land access. The story with Brook and Chauncey is great. This is new access to new acreage for them. But if you have an existing relationship with the land or your tenant farmer wants to continue working the land, there are definitely ways to continue that. Okay. We have oh, go ahead. Paul, did you have something you were going to add, no, I said nice. Okay. All right. Very good. All right. We've got an ample amount of time here for questions. Type them into the Q&A box here and we'll answer them. I guess I wanted to circle back too while we're waiting for questions is, how refreshing it is for Angie to talk about land stewardship. I think that that's also what Ruth's getting at a little bit with her comment about some bad actors she's maybe seen or heard about in local to Michigan. I think that you do have to recognize that whether you're the farmer, whether you're the energy company or even the construction company, the quality and how you're taking care of the land at all stages of development, is really important. There's an opportunity here to leave the land potentially better than when it was being used in just the traditional row crop. Production. You know, we're seeing the benefits of grazing with improving soil health, and I think that's only going to continue, and there's going to be more studies out there that back up as farmers, you kind of see. So it's so refreshing and that's one of the reasons we really value the partnership with Angie. She's a great representation that they care as much about the quality of the land and being stewards of the land as the farmers or the land owners. Thank you, Brooke. I'd like to toss this question out to the three of you. Michigan is moving down this agravoltaic road slowly, I think, but surely. But in your opinion, what has to happen if we're going to increase agravoltaics in Michigan? How would you answer that question? Yeah, I think having Michigan adopt a community solar program and policy would be really helpful, especially again for those three to 50 to 100 acre sites, which I think are most easily accessible for new grazers and new agravoltaic farmers. Policy would be number one. I think additional support from like the state level Farm Bureau and other organizations to give some kind of guidance and best practices to counties and townships that are adopting new solar siding policy. I guess double on the policy, state level and then support and push from Ag community as well. I chime in on that in our state where the state put together a program that it kind of it made it a little easier in a few guidelines and some unanswered questions that it made it a lot more probable for it to happen. So I think the policy has to be, really up there on the list. I also just wanted to add education resources that are specific to Michigan or specific to the Midwest for farmers. I think that's where Charles has done an incredible job from an extension standpoint in leading the way in just sharing and putting together opportunities for education about agravoltaics. But again, also that's where I would cite United United Agri VoltaicsHartland Alliance, trying to build a network of Midwest farmers and Michigan farmers to really have conversations about are the barriers that you feel right now are inhibiting your ability to take advantage of contracts? Is it connections to the energy companies? Is it you need access to micro grant funding to put up a new barn or new resources that'll allow you to scale up? I think that regional resources are really important with this because the way we're seeing agrivoltaics developed in Michigan and the Midwest is different than it's being done anywhere in the country and the tools and the connectors and the influencers and the educators are all still coming together and emerging to help farmers take advantage of the opportunities. Thank you, Brooke. Angie, could you take this one? What can solar installer do to make sure we are keeping this top of mind if agricultural customers are looking at solar for their land? Yeah. So let's see. On the installation side, I think the main things we like to keep in mind and advise our EPCs or construction partners on is minimizing cut and fill like civil works activities on site. If you are stuck and you do need to do cut and fill, making sure you're really crystal clear about those protocols for top for stockpiling that topsoil and then redistributing it. The other big thing is compaction during construction. We're using some really big equipment like pile drivers, et cetera, and making sure you're keeping that to a minimum and then having a plan in place for decompaction, so that that veg mix is ultimately going to actually establish on the site. I'm really glad you brought up compaction because that is an issue that I have been really, really trying to raise to everybody the level of consciousness in people's minds. Compaction doesn't go compaction will go away, but after years and years. So thank you for that. Greg asked any cautionary experiences to share regarding negative animal slash equipment impacts and what was done to remedy them. We talked about the compaction, but what about the animal side? Brooke, you brought up guard dogs and Angie, you may have and Paul, you may have additional input on this. How would you respond to this? We've been lucky so far. I really hasn't been much of an issue. I've had the problems with my home farm, but not on a solar site yet. I can see it being an issue if you start lambing on a site. You know, they're well built fences, so we're good with that. Hardest part of it is built building a corral at every site to get it back. Water is making sure they have water and, you know, when you had a site 100 miles away and it's hot out, you worry. I'll also add the one thing that probably sheep farmers don't want to talk about, but we know is a reality is, you know, livestock dies. And so having a plan for if the worst happens on your site where one of your use doesn't make it. I think that really speaks to, you know, having a good sense of what's going on on your site so that animal isn't dead in view next to the road for too long and just knowing what your plan is for removing any of the deads that might happen. Then too, there's a phone number on each of the sites or you should leave your contact information in addition to the energy companies contact information. We had an issue on one of our sites that we managed with Angie, where a farmer was concerned about you and some lambs. And, you know, Angie was their first call, but then, Angie called us right away and we were able to get it resolved pretty quickly. And we also made sure to directly talk to the neighbor who also happened to be a farmer. And so they could know that it wasn't this big corporation from out of state managing the site, it's local farmers that care about their animals, and that went a long way smoothing over any concern they had about animal welfare. Yeah, Paul, I'm so curious to hear if you've had any cautionary tails from running cattle under your array. I know your panels are up at ten feet everything, but have you had any issues? We haven't had any issues. I can say that. In what I have had the test offences and offenses have held some of the angus tend to just the grass is greener on the other side for some reason. But the fences were a good sturdy fence and they've held fine. We thought about originally because the drops that carry the electricity go down and they're trenched down to where the row, you know, collected. So there's drops that come down, so it's a conduit that comes down out of, you know, high elevated panels. And our concern was the cows were going to get in there, push on them, scratch on them, so forth, and so on. So we came up with a plan where we had put some cross bracing and, like, a heavy metal, like cage material down to protect those, which was done during construction. We became aware of it when it's like, Well, those aren't next to the eye beam. They're like, No, because the trench can't go where the eye beam is. It has to go between them. So we came up with that. And I haven't really noticed them even really trying it very much. But just to be cautious, that was implemented as we went. But so far, we haven't really had any issues with them doing any damage whatsoever. All right. Thank you. Welcome. Clyde asked the question, should local planning commissions take a stronger stand in advocating agrobataics? I think we have pretty much answered that question. You know, everything happens on the local level, right? That's where the rubber meets the road. I think though it's things like we're doing tonight where we're bringing in individuals with expertise on what this looks like who have lived experiences with grazing sheep and grazing cattle and managing solar sites that have agrovtaics. So hopefully what is put forth here tonight will change some attitudes and perceptions. Dave as Gas program. Thank you, Paul. Dave asked the question. Are there any examples in Michigan yet? I know of a couple of municipal sewage treatment properties that are maintained by sheep. Is MSU thinking about that? So there's there are some mob grazing on small solar sites in Michigan. As I understand it, Western Michigan University has 11 acre site and Wolverine Power and Cadillac has a site across from their headquarters where they've been doing some mob grazing. We do not have any grazing systems. We don't have solar grazing like Brooke and Chauncey do on a large scale. We hope though that that changes. Um, we understand that there's some opportunities that are being discussed, but nothing has come out of that yet. I MSU thinking about it? I would say that the answer to that is yes, and we hope that we'll be able to have some have a site on campus in the not too distant future. Certainly, I've had discussions with our experiment stations on the west side of the state, the advisory committee for the Experiment Station in Oceana County, is made up of farmers, fruit growers, primarily who have asked for who who have asked for agrovtaic research because they evidently they have heard about the impact or the protection that solar overhead can provide against frost damage and hail and extreme weather conditions. So so we just need to get some momentum going here. I think if we can link with we, meaning the university can link with solar developers and farmers that are interested in this, we can make it happen. We're looking for partners. Joe, do you want to talk about Michael's question? How flexible would the solar industry be to adding utilities for grazers during construction, such as wells and irrigation? Paul dropped a great answer Paul, your developer was able to work out wells and that sort of thing for you? Yeah. What we do we put that together as part of the as part of the incentive program for me, really, where we had a budget to work with because I was going to need a cattle shelter. I knew I needed water. So I was going to need a little well house, well. And then, you know, we wanted the fencing that we did with. It was more of a it even looked more it's an agricultural fence as opposed to a commercial looking chain link, you know. And they they were very they were good with us. They gave us they gave us a budget to work with, and I GC the stuff myself. And we put it together. I come from I also work on a farm and I come from that side, so I understood the development side of it and took care and GC it myself to get that done. And we basically did it on the budget, so it worked out. All right. Brooke, it looks like you're typing an answer, but Angie, I'll toss this out to you. What's the business model for pivot Energy working with Ag? Yeah. So for us, we own the solar arrays. We own those assets and operate them in the long term and managing vegetation is a known quantity and an assumed cost in our financial models. And so for us, we essentially contract with the grazing partner or with a farm producer partner and pay them as a service, as Brook said. Um, because this is something that we have to do for compliance on our sites. And so we're just choosing a different vendor than maybe others might choose. And then ultimately, any and all agricultural products that come off of that solar garden, it's wholly up to the farmer producer partner to benefit from those. So, you know, Brook and Chauncey, we pay them per acre per year fee plus perimeter mowing, per dispatch for perimeter mowing. And then if they come home with some extra lambs, once those get up to market white, they can go and sell those and they wholly benefit from that. Yeah, I love that model. That just lights my fire. And that's how we keep farms that's how we keep farm families on the farm when we have a business model like that. Okay. It looks like we've answered all the questions. Well, Brooke and Chauncey, there's a fencing question here. Did we answer that, or do you want to add more to it? Can you show us the fencing you're using? It's a little bit of the smaller sites right now, so just the perimeter fencing at the sites and they're good some are chain links, some are just good eight foot egg fence. They're very high quality fences better than anything I'd ever build myself. We also use a little bit of hog fencing to either build the corrals or when you have to fence off certain parts for the energy compliance, like the inverter pads, usually. Those galvanized, 16 foot panels. Yeah. And use those for oral, which works. There's better options, but they work for coral. I would say that would be our advice too. What is going to make sense for you? What do you maybe already have on hand at the farm? Because as you get into this, fencing is going to be a bigger and bigger expense, especially when the vegetation gets up to a point where you might have to start breaking sites into the paddocks to rotationally graze to keep up with doing more targeted grazing. We didn't have to do that as much in year one because the vegetation was still getting established, but you should look at what fencing options you already have and an experiment with what might work the best for you. I think too, I always look at wire management and fencing as the top two things when I go to a site visit while it's under construction. I think it's also okay to lean on that solar asset owner to really be conscious of keeping that fencing type to ground because it's about keeping those sheep in and keeping the coyotes and the predators out, it's okay to ask them to add additional barbed wire at the bottom or add a hot wire and to pay for that to make sure the infrastructure is there to really t us all up for success. We did talk a little bit about this, but ask all three of you to just take a minute here and explain reaction from non farmer neighbors to solar grazing. We would say positive, especially in some of our urban settings, we had people honking the horn and pulling over to look at, oh my gosh, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing? Again, being really responsive to the neighbors if there are issues on your site has really helped us. The usual response is, oh, that's cool. Yes. You like looking at them. That is exactly the response. Okay. Positive, nothing but positive comments from the neighbors, folks around town. A lot of people saying it was great to see the cows back on the farm. It's been very positive. Okay. So excuse me, the last 3 minutes that we have, I want to give each of you a minute for any last comments that you want to make. Any any words of wisdom that you didn't share that you want to share before we end our webinar tonight. I'd say look at this as you're providing a service over the actual grazing. I think that's the best way to look at it for the sheet producer, but you get to graze it too and you get the feed, but look at it more as you're providing a service and you happen to be getting the feed. It's truly a partnership. So things aren't going to be 100% perfect for the farmer, but it's about working together to gain access to new opportunities. You can make it work and it's I think the biggest opportunity in sheep farming for sure, in a lot of ways is agriculture. I'd have to say if it was a farmer that wanted to do it on his own property like I am, it's it's a great it's a great marriage where you can still use the property, you're producing clean energy and you're getting a year around revenue. Just that little shot in the arm that kind of keeps things going. I it's you have to be patient. It doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen. So that'll be my words wisdom. Yeah, I'll just say it is absolutely possible and absolutely should happen on every solar array. We've proven, we've seen that this is scalable, and it's a really exciting opportunity all around. I want to see it everywhere. There you go. All right. Thank you, Brook and Chauncey. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Angie, for taking time out of your evening tonight to spend it with 41 Michiganders. And who are hungry for this kind of information. We really appreciate you sharing your expertise with us. The other thing that I would say is Wednesday's session, farmer experienced growing vegetables under and between solar arrays with Gina Turn from our kids farm. It's going to start at 7:00 as well. This is a different URL, and you should have got an email with that URL. So we hope to see the same crowd here Wednesday night. I've seen Gina's presentation and it's packed with some great information that is really going to help you understand how you can grow vegetables under on and around solar arrays. With that in mind, this concludes this webinar and I hope that all of you enjoy the rest of your evening.