Daren

Activist: "You can graze sheep underneath solar panels. It's called agrivoltaics." Farmer: "I've read the brochures." Activist: "Best of both worlds." Farmer: "The panels shade the sward. Productive species die back. What grows is what tolerates shade and compaction. Sheep won't finish on it." Activist: "But the trials show it works." Farmer: "The trials run three years and measure ewe presence. Not lamb growth rates. Not finishing weights. Not what the soil looks like in year fifteen." Activist: "It's still better than nothing." Farmer: "It's a 30% stocking rate, a steel frame I can't plough around, panel-cleaning chemicals running into the watercourse, and a 40-year lease I can't break." Activist: "But you're getting energy AND lamb." Farmer: "I'm getting a third of the lamb, a maintenance contract, and a field my grandson can't farm." Activist: "You're being negative." Farmer: "I'm watching a thousand-year-old way of feeding people get traded for twenty-five years of subsidised electricity. Negative would be the polite word."