Field Work Podcast

Listen: Adding to farm income with solar and wind energy

June 2020

Crop prices aren't what they used to be, so some farmers have sought out additional sources of income, including clean energy.

On a recent episode of Field Work podcast, hosts Zach Johnson and Mitchell Hora talk to Pat Duncanson, a fifth generation farmer in southern Blue Earth County who has several solar projects on his land, and Fritz Ebinger with CERTs, who helps farmers explore clean energy options.

Pat has a 20kW roof-mounted solar array serving his farm, a 60kW ground-mounted solar installation on a swine finishing site, and hosts a community solar garden on a plot of non-prime ag land he owns near the City of Mapleton, MN.

If we can somehow figure out, ‘Well, here’s a piece of farmland that maybe isn’t Grade A prime farmland, is there a better use for it?' Maybe we can produce some solar on that. And if we have solar on it, maybe we can also do some other things that are good for society, like pollinator habitat.

Pat Duncanson, Blue Earth County corn and soybean farmer

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