thatHarrisburg, PA – Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding as we speak launched steerage for landowners contemplating photo voltaic manufacturing on farms and in Pennsylvania’s rural communities. The information outlines the Wolf Administration’s help for applied sciences that create jobs and generate farm earnings with out compromising meals and fiber manufacturing. Photo voltaic vitality is a climate-smart know-how that achieves objectives whereas decreasing emissions and serving to to scale back the unfavourable results of local weather change.
“Pennsylvania’s farms are a priceless useful resource for producing meals, defending the environment, and feeding our financial system,” Redding mentioned. “Photo voltaic vitality manufacturing has nice potential for producing electrical energy to energy farm operations and speed up Pennsylvania’s transition to a clear vitality future. When correctly deliberate, well-placed and correctly upkeep, photo voltaic manufacturing doesn’t compromise or scale back priceless farm assets, however as a substitute enhances them.”
Points guiding enterprise determination making embrace:
- Sustainable website choice prioritizes rooftops, parking tons or brownfields over agricultural or forest land, avoiding high quality land areas altogether.
- Upkeep that protects soil and pollinators via native vegetation with out invasive species; offers precedence to grazing in comparison with mowing, paying farmers for the service; and consists of decommissioning plans to completely restore any land in a undertaking’s completion.
- Integrating vitality and agricultural manufacturing in a approach that’s complementary relatively than aggressive.
The steerage outlines extra issues for farm homeowners together with the impression 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 entire information, together with a listing of often requested questions and extra assets for going photo voltaic, will be discovered on the division’s web site, agriculture.pa.gov.
For extra info on climate-smart methods for presidency, neighborhood leaders, agriculture and different companies, go to the Pennsylvania Local weather Motion Plan. Discover extra info, funding, and different assets for making your farm extra productive and sustainable on the State Conservation Fee’s pages at agriculture.pa.gov.
MEDIA CONTACT: Shannon Powers – [email protected], 717.603.2056
###
