Agrivoltaic: Addressing food & climate concerns

If there is one concern that is so apparent and is felt throughout the world, that is climate change. While it is true that some politicians, especially the Republicans from the USA, are insinuating that it is a hoax, the fact remains that their country and the rest of the world aren’t spared of its ill effects. Frequent visits of hurricanes, heatwaves and wildfires are some of the many effects attributed to it.

Yes, according to credible scientists, climate change is real and global warming is just one aspect of it. It talks about extreme weather that is caused largely by carbon dioxide emissions out of the production of fossil fuel and the use of it. The fact is, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2019, “global emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide totaled 33.1 billion metric tons.” That’s how huge and dangerous global CO2 emission is.

One may say, we (Filipinos) don’t produce much fossil fuel, so, we aren’t guilty of it. The International Energy Agency (which estimates CO2 emissions) said, however, that these are coming “from the combustion of coal, natural gas, oil, and other fuels, including industrial waste and non-renewable municipal waste.” Apparently, therefore, we are contributors too.

Yes, we, the global citizens, are all guilty of it. There are just so many of them to enumerate. However, in the interest of space, we only have to mention what we use every day, plastic shopping bags. Just in case you missed it in your science class, plastic bags come from fossil fuel. And if in case you further missed it, according to the United Nations Environment Program, we produce about 300 million tons (almost the weight of the entire human population) of plastic wastes annually.

Summing it up, climate change brings about the worst concern the world could ever have, food security. According to the United Nations' Committee on World Food Security, it means that “all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.”  Obviously, therefore, the opposite pervades in the world. That many of us merely exist. On hand-to-mouth existence.

Knowing fully well that, despite being guilty of destroying our environment, these fossil fuel producers aren’t helping us get over these concerns, a greener alternative must be considered. And there are credible studies that will help us understand this. One of them is the report from Carbon Tracker, a London-based non-profit organization.

According to the report, people are using only a fraction of the renewable energy available to them. The report notes that only “0.01% of the world’s solar potential is being utilized, and just 0.16% of wind potential is being exploited.” So that, Carbon Tracker stressed that “solar and wind energy have the potential to meet global electricity demand 100 times over, and the costs of these renewables are collapsing so rapidly that fossil fuels could be pushed out of electricity generation altogether by 2035.”

With such findings, Carbon Tracker claimed that “the fossil fuel era is over.” At current growth rates, it says, “solar and wind power could price fossil fuels out of the world’s electricity markets by the mid-2030s, and by 2050 could replace fossil fuels entirely.”

However, there is a little caveat though, especially in the country. We’ve seen solar farms built that are just a foot or a few feet above the ground. Obviously, therefore, these panels rendered the soil underneath useless for food production purposes. It is pure nonsense winning back our desired climate and lose in our food security initiatives.

On this concern, a better alternative is available. That’s agrivoltaic (a portmanteau of agriculture and photovoltaic) farming. It is a practice of growing crops underneath solar panels.  There are scientific studies already on this and results have been very encouraging.  In fact, researchers in South Korea have been growing broccoli underneath photovoltaic panels. To be able to utilize the soil underneath for agriculture, the panels are “positioned 2-3 meters off the ground and sit at an angle of 30 degrees, providing shade and offering crops protection from the weather.”

Likewise, an Agrivoltaic farming project in Kenya is “using solar panels held several meters off the ground, with gaps in between them.” This way, the “shade from the panels protects vegetables from heat stress and water loss.”

Undeniably, by embracing agrivoltaic, we can double up on land use. With it, we can help feed the world’s growing population and, at the same time, ease climate change.