Grazing sheep under solar panels creates new agriculture business

CHICAGO — Combining solar projects with grazing animals is a way for livestock producers to expand their operations without depending on land ownership.

“One of the greatest things is we’re sowing the seeds for creating a new agriculture,” said Paul Cummings, who owns Sunovis Ranch with his wife, Dana.

“Getting paid to graze sheep and then also selling the lambs is exciting,” said Paul during a presentation at the 2025 Solar Farm Summit at McCormick Place in Chicago.

The Cummings started their ranch in 2018 when they purchased a 40-acre farm near Franklin in central Indiana.

“I’m a fund-raiser, so I do a lot of work for nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions and foundations,” Dana said. “I started a company last year that focuses on that which allows me time to work on the ranch.”

Sunovis Ranch is also a side hustle for Paul, who works for a solar developer.

“So, I come at it first from a developer’s perspective,” he said.

In 2019, the Cummings purchased two ewes and started to learn by doing, to develop their skills for how to care for the sheep and rotationally graze them.

“During the last year or so we started to expand and turn it into a business and we do a variety of things including grazing plans for developers,” Dana said. “At the end of the process we provide a robust document that includes everything they need to know for grazing sheep on their parcels.”

Sometimes these documents total 100 pages.

“We take a really personalized approach so that our clients get what they need,” Dana said. “We have about 100 sheep and we do deploy them for on-site grazing, when the circumstances are right for our sheep to be the ones to do the grazing.”

“We do a lot of rancher recruitment and education and over the last year we have been developing an education center on our property,” she said. “We bring in developers, young folks, college kids or anyone who is interested in learning about what we are doing.”

Gray’s LAMBscaping

Marcus and Jess Gray own Gray’s LAMBscaping, based in Virginia.

“We graze about 4,000 acres with 1,100 ewes,” said Marcus at the summit. “We graze sheep on sites that are in various stages of construction, so it is never too early to get sheep on a site.”

The Grays have been to 27 counties in Virginia to talk about agrivoltaics and the economic benefits of sheep grazing.

“One of the things we hear is that we are not real agriculture,” Marcus said. “There were about 1.3 million sheep in the 1840s, but now we’re at 80,000 sheep in Virginia.”

“When you go into an area that hasn’t had sheep for 100 years, people don’t know how to react to it,” he said. “But we know the benefits of our operation to the local economy. We are a commercial enterprise.”

Gray’s LAMBscaping is raising lamb for meat.

“It’s not just a few sheep out there — we are producing calories on the land that is also producing electricity,” Marcus said. “We have 1,100 sheep, so this is not a hobby.”

The projection, Marcus said, is for 300,000 acres of solar in Virginia.

“Our county has already approved 18,000 acres, and within an hour, there are 50,000 acres already permitted,” he said. “If you don’t put sheep or cattle or chickens out there, it’s going to be mowed.”

‘Sheepwashing’

“Sheepwashing is when solar energy companies use sheep grazing as a PR tool rather than a meaningful, integrated agricultural practice,” Dana said.

“This is what we’re advocating to avoid as an industry — putting sheep on a site as a trial without a plan for success,” she said. “We’ve seen that fail miserably so we really need to have a plan upfront.”

“Something that people don’t think about is inappropriate sheep,” Paul said. “Don’t buy western sheep and bring them to Indiana— you need sheep that are regionally adapted.”

Grazing plans are vital, Jess said, because there are so many variables throughout the year.

“In January, the paddock might look a little different than it does in April because we have a spring flush, so everything is growing really fast,” she said.

Providing water on solar sites is beneficial for grazing operations.

“That is probably our biggest issue, not having accessible water,” Jess said. “We have to haul water to all of our sites, so it is a bit of a nightmare.”

The Grays have been working with the solar companies to get at least one well on each solar site.

“I don’t mind hauling water around the site,” Jess said.

“Our sheep go across the paddocks at least nine times a year,” Paul said. “So, the needs of the critters need to match the availability of the forage, and if you can do that in harmony, it’s a pretty straightforward system.”