Name: ASGA Call 64: Large-Site Solar Grazing, What Graziers Need to Know (Panel Discussion)
Start: 2023-03-01T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2023-03-01T19:00:00-05:00

ASGA Call 64: Large-Site Solar Grazing, What Graziers Need to Know (Panel Discussion)

March 1, 2023 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm EST

What does it take to manage a utility scale grazing and how do you get started? What are the roadblocks and what are the success stories?

Join us for this panel discussion with ASGA members JR Howard, Ryan Indart, and Chad Raines who will answer your questions about utility-scale solar grazing and speak about their own experience, including the challenges and opportunities they have encountered.

Hosts: Kevin Richardson, Caroline Owens, and Caleb Scott

The U.S. is in the middle of an unprecedented expansion of large solar farms, and we could see up to 29 gigawatts of new large-scale solar developments in 2023 alone.

As utility-scale solar farms rapidly expand across the country, especially in regions where solar grazing has mostly been done on community-scale sites, there will be high demand to graze these larger solar sites.

Many farmers will be challenged to expand their grazing business or innovate new operations with fellow producers to match the requirements of utility-scale grazing.

While each region and each farmer will have their own unique challenges and innovations, we can learn a lot from those who are already grazing at scale or working on building a utility-scale grazing operation.

Fortunately ASGA has awesome graziers who are already operating at scale.

We’ve prepared a moderated panel discussion with three ASGA members, Ryan Indart, JR Howard, and Chad Raines, who will talk about their own unique experiences and how they are meeting the challenges of solar grazing at scale.

Ryan Indart is a 4th-generatoin rancher who grazes 10,000+ acres at major solar sites in low-rainfall areas in California and Arizona. In 2009 Ryan purchased the sheep ranching enterprise from the family business and started The Indart Group, Inc., which is engaged in sheep ranching, direct marketing of lamb, dry land farming, custom sheep grazing services specializing in large utility scale solar projects and custom farm work. He currently grazes around 3,500 Targhee X Finn sheep, and shears over 30,000 pounds of wool that is warehoused and sold through Roswell Wool.

JR Howard grazes utility-scale solar sites in rain-rich East Texas where rainfall can hit 50 inches per year. He and his family own/operate Texas Solar Sheep focusing on utility scale grazing. They currently run about 3500 ewes. JR is the current President of the Texas Dorper Sheep Association and on the national board of directors for the American Dorper Sheep Breeders Society.

Chad Raines is a long-time rancher from West Texas who’s just getting started with solar grazing and plans to build a business around large-site operations. He’s looking to graze far from his home base, which presents unique challenges.

They’re here to answer your questions about getting scaling up and running utility-scale operations.