Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Lewis Fox]: We we put together a handout that sort of bullet points, the main points of the the the short testimony I prepared. So when when Pat emailed me, I was, you know, not, you know, totally keeping up with what there was in terms of legislation currently. So I've been brushing up and watching previous testimony, so we put together a brief testimony, and then we have the handout as well.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We can go ahead and get started with you. Just want to introduce yourself for the record, what you do, where you live, and anything you'd like to share.

[Lewis Fox]: Very good. For the record, my name is Lewis Fox. I live in Leicester, Vermont, and I've prepared a brief testimony on our work, our business crazy solar arrays in Vermont and the Northeast. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Name is Lewis Fox. I farm with my wife, Nico, and our two children in Leicester, Vermont. We're sheep producers and since 2018 have specialized in solar grazing through our business, agrivoltaic solutions. I also serve on the advisory board of the American Solar Grazing Association, an organization Nico and I helped found. Our farm has been in my family since 1987, when my parents began milking a herd of registered Jerseys. They were early practitioners of rotational grazing and were one of the first certified organic farms in Vermont in the 1990s. My wife and I met in New York and bought our first flock of sheep, which we eventually moved back to the farm with us in 2021. While our family made the difficult decision to exit the dairy business in 2024, after nearly forty years of milking cows, solar grazing has allowed us to move forward and remain a viable multi generational farm. Today, our flock of 700 Catawan sheep graze approximately six fifty acres of ground mounted solar sites in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York. We produce hay and silage and graze our replacement lambs at the home farm during the summer. Our business is our sole source of family income, as well as supporting two full time local employees and a UVM summer intern for the last two years. Agrivoltaics is a broad term encompassing many different forms of agriculture practiced in and around a solar array. Sheep grazing is most common, but we also see vegetable and hay production at sites in the Northeast and an increasing implementation of cattle grazing. Solar grazing in simple terms is paid vegetation management using grazing animals, most commonly sheep. Every solar site has a budget line for vegetation management, and solar grazing can direct that money to the local farmer, while also providing feed, shade, and a secure fence for their flock. We consider solar sites to be highly productive environments for raising sheep. The main advantages of these over a conventional pasture are the secure perimeter fence and the abundant shade provided by the panels. Predator loss has always been a significant challenge for the sheep industry, and secure perimeter fences on the sites can ameliorate these risks. The abundant shade provided by the panels lowers the ambient temperature at ground level and significantly reduces incidents of heat stress in the flock during the summer months. We find in our own experience that sheep pasturing on solar sites consume significantly less water than animals in a conventional pasture setting, as they are able to maintain their body temperature much more effectively. As I noted earlier, I serve the advisory board of the American Solar Grazing Association, ASGA, a trade organization representing 1,500 members across The United States. In 2024 ASGA partnered with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL, to conduct a comprehensive census of solar grazing. Our findings were significant. Approximately 130,000 acres of solar across The U. S. Are currently being grazed by over 113,000 sheep. Here in the Northeast about 4,600 acres are managed by 13,000 sheep. To put that in perspective based on 2025 U. S. Ag Census data, solar grazing already supports roughly 5% of the total sheep block in the Northeast. Several states have pioneered effective incentives for solar agricultural integration. New York utilizes a smart solar siting scorecard to award power contracts and imposes mitigation penalties on prime farmland finest mineral soil groups one through four, that are waived only if the developer implements and maintains a verified agricultural plan. Massachusetts provides a direct tariff adder for projects that maintain active farming under the smart program. Similarly, New Jersey's dual use pilot program offers price adders to reach its 200 megawatt goal for integrated sites. Finally, Illinois uses agrivoltaics as a key scoring criterion for projects to win competitive grid slots. Their Illinois SHINES program insures ongoing ag use through rigorous reporting standards. While many of our current customers adopt solar grazing voluntarily, Vermont has a unique opportunity to make agricultural integration a standard component of our state's development pipeline, and we would support the creation of incentive structure to do this. We applaud the committee's desire to address land use at these sites in a proactive manner, and we would support seeing the agency of agriculture food and markets enroll within the section two forty eight process that could drive further adoption of ag use. However, we must be intentional about site scale and design. We encourage the committee to avoid language that incentivizes sites smaller than five acres. From an agricultural perspective, sites of this size are often unviable. The cost of transporting livestock, water and equipment to a small parcel far outweighs the grazing benefit. Incentivizing sub five acre development could inadvertently lead to fragmentation of our agricultural landscape. Incentivizing agrivoltaics would allow the state to establish guidelines around site design to ensure compatibility with ag use, pitfalls of having no incentive structures, or that developers may inadvertently hamper the effectiveness of farming at the sites with design choices made without agriculture in mind. Examples of this are increasing use of wildlife friendly fencing, leaves a six to eight inch gap at the bottom of the perimeter fence for passage of animals. This effectively means that the site is no longer safe from predators. Another example is that absent agricultural goals, many developers may enhance their projects with wildflower heavy seed mixes. While we absolutely support pollinator health, many of these mixes lack the nutritional density required for livestock or proven palatable to grazing animals. With the right incentives, we do not have to choose between these goals. We can easily tailor seed mixes to provide both high pollinator value and high quality forage if there is an incentive to do so. If not for the availability of solar grazing, supporting a family living on our 200 acre farm without an outside job would be very difficult. With solar, we are able to access highly productive fenced pastures for our animals and build a service business around this. Our future as farmers is not threatened by solar development in the way that it is from permanent conversion of farmland, I. E. Housing or commercial development. We're able to provide long term stewardship to the soils at these sites through managed rotational grazing, which can maintain their fertility and biological integrity. Our main constraint now is that there are a limited number of solar sites in Vermont currently built. Much of our grazing takes place in New York and we would like to see more thoughtful solar development close to home. Solar grazing is a unique model that could be a significant part of Vermont's agricultural future. It provides opportunities access to new farmers and existing farmers to increase their land base, which increases their production capacity. Beyond this, the grazing fees provide a revenue that is not dependent on weather or commodity markets. Solar grazing can turn land access, which is perhaps the most difficult and expensive part of scaling a farming business, into a profit center. Solar grazing is not theoretical or a pilot program. It's not a prediction of what could be done. It is being done now at scale, and it is growing rapidly. We would encourage you to think of how it can be harnessed to benefit Vermont farming families like ours. Thank you for your time.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Hey, thank you. We'll jump right into questions. Yeah, thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Lewis, a couple things. The language that we're looking at talks about solar on prime magma. Mhmm. You know, our best soils are soils, places where you can grow real crops and whatnot. Our farm, as an example, I represent Durfee, legislature, and Richard Nelson. And our farm has several hillside center slope to the south would be or and roof roofs, a lot of roofs, but you can't raise a roof, but we have self spacing slopes that are too steep for farming, that are in old pasture now that, you know, could house solar and gray sheet. So, you know, so I support what you're talking about, but what we're looking at is those flat, you know, beautiful, you know, farm farmland, you know, that can grow cattle feed or or or vegetables and stuff to support equipment. You say you use the word incentivize a lot. Explain that to me. I I assume you you you receive your income. So instead of the solar company having the mow and tend the inside of their fence, you could go in, you know, you're going to your sheep, so they're not paying people to mow, so they pay you to raise.

[Lewis Fox]: That's right. What do you mean by incentivize? I, we would support seeing, you know, whether it's a incentive structure that actively supports ag use, or whether it's just a framework so that developers understand, you know, how they may develop their sites to, you know, to accommodate ag use, we would support seeing some structure in Vermont, so that it's recognized, and that there's a reason for more developers to integrate agricultural activity, you know, actively into their projects. So I don't have a position on whether it's, you know, additional, you know, financial incentives or penalty incentives. I just think it should be recognized because it is, I think, a key part, you know, I think the land uses, you probably agree, is very important. And getting that right is important. And I think there should be a structure where the state recognizes recognizes that and supports developers integrating ag. I

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: should just say that we're not looking specifically at any language here and not necessarily looking for policy prescription, but but I appreciate your bringing that up. But I think it'd be particularly helpful for us to better understand the model credit is and what you've learned from having been doing it for a while now. But there were a couple of specific questions. Representative Bartholomew. Well, you

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: mentioned the shelter that the panels provide, which sounds like there's a clear advantage there. But pretty much by definition, if you're creating shade, you've got to be reducing the biomass limitation. Yes. So what is that in terms of productivity of the land? How much is that really affected by these panels?

[Lewis Fox]: Yeah, that's a great question. We have some research references in the handout, actually my wife conducted some of the research at Cornell and at her time there. In simple terms, there is some reduced forage production under the panels, and you know the percent varies with the site and how much panel coverage there is because it does vary. We see lower production to some degree directly under the panels, and we generally see higher quality forage under the panels because the plant does not get as heat stressed in the shade, and it does not as quickly reach its, you know, mature seed stage. So generally what we see, I guess in simple terms, would be more lush forage under the panels. And so usually, you know, a lot of cool season varieties and the forage mix here in the Northeast in July and August when a lot of the rest of pasture sort of slows down its growth and becomes lignified and mature, we generally still have, you know, more lush forage available under the panels. So there is some, you know, lower production directly under the panels, it's just sort of different. And in our experience in a grazing system, it does somewhat even out production over the season.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: And my other question is, you focus on sheep and the advantages of using sheep, but what are the impediments for cattle?

[Lewis Fox]: Well, there's been less uptake of cattle. There's becoming more, there's more sites that are starting to use grazing cattle in different parts of the country. There's a little more reluctance to do so because of the size of the animal behavior of the animal. Scratching posts. Scratching posts, this is what we think of. You know, anecdotally, there's a few large developers, a couple, especially in the Southeast that are starting to deploy cattle and, you know, large sites like 700 acre, you know, sites. Was was discussing it a little bit yesterday. Normal conventional Angus cattle, they're putting heifers stockers on, so like a 700 pound animal, and they seem to be, you know, having great success with it. We're starting to see some people. There's a gentleman in New York using smaller breed cattle. We're actually ourselves looking at getting some Angus heifers to hopefully start trying that out, because I think, you know, obviously the cattle market is much larger than the sheep market, and I think if we're able to do that successfully, that would be great success.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Tough time to call you into

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It is

[Lewis Fox]: a tough time to

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Bos-Lun?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Yeah, I'm wondering, are there other states that have sort of supportive legislation like the type that you're talking about that would be wise for Vermont to do? Or would we be the first?

[Lewis Fox]: There are other states that have supportive legislation, and I frankly can't speak on them with any great authority. Know, these

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Do you

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: happen to know which states they are?

[Lewis Fox]: Off the top of my head, I can't think of what states they are. Different states, you know, may have, you know, more or less proactive structures for development. You know, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois are states that we've sort of been involved with in a consulting capacity or grazing contracting capacity. So I'm more familiar with those programs. But I believe, you know, there are other states.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Okay, I can look it up. And I'm wondering in terms of the sheep, what's your primary market for the sheep besides grazing? Sure. Are you a wool salesperson or you sell mutton or lamb? Sure. How do you how do you make money back on the sheep themselves?

[Lewis Fox]: Yes, we sell lamb. So we raise hair sheep, what are considered hair sheep, they don't grow wool. The wool market is not what it used to be in The US. So the hair sheep are becoming increasingly popular because you don't have the expense of shearing them, which is the direction that we've gone. So we sell we sell lamb primarily through auctions. So most of ours go through auctions in New York.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: So most of the sheep that are grazing are babies, or you have a lot of the moms that are breeders that are doing because I would just think a lamb wouldn't eat that much.

[Lewis Fox]: They don't. Before you're

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: going kill them

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: and eat them.

[Lewis Fox]: Well, it's just dependent on body size. So, we lamb in February. So, we're just weaning lambs now. And that's mostly because we graze the solar side. I mean, it's easier to lamb, you know, in April, May, but we like to, you know, lamb in February, March, we're weaning them around now. We've got the 700 or so ewes that go out and graze sites. And then we also generally, you know, graze our market lambs on sites as well. So they, you know, their feed intake is a function of their body size. So a smaller lamb doesn't need as much, but if you have a lot of them, you can quantify And how much that then we're generally, I mean, we graze them all season, we market them the following, you know, winter.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you. Representative Lipsky. Thank you, Lewis. I'm thinking in terms of scale. I

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: would cut logs maybe five hours away, 300 miles away, and it was very challenging, closer to home. So you referred to New York, which is a very large state. How far do you go to graze solar sites in New Hampshire? I mean, you're near the New York State border.

[Lewis Fox]: Yes. So we have one site in New Hampshire around Concord that we graze, and eventually, it is a stretch. And I mean, as kind of pointed out in the testimony, we'd like to graze closer to home, but you know there's just not a whole lot of sites built in Vermont, so we go farther afield. We go to about you know the Albany area ourselves in New York and you know about as far west as like Johnstown. Yeah. You

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: were talking about scale. So I mean, like, got a five acre or 10 acre solar site. Yeah. Do you truck in there?

[Lewis Fox]: So it depends on how many other sites we have around it. So what we'll usually do is, is we'll stock the sites pretty heavily, and then we'll just move them from site to site to site. You know, generally, we're looking at putting five to 10 sheep an acre on for a couple weeks, and then we'll move on. Some sites, if it's a larger site, you know, we don't have a lot of very large sites, but we, you know, say have some 50 acres sites, 60 acre sites in New York, you know, we'll stock it a little bit less densely than that, but we'll subdivide it with fencing and, you know, rotate them through the paddocks.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: In our town last year, it's the first time, somehow through state law and everything, we've ended up taking over like 40 stormwater ponds. Yep. Ponds and there's no more because there's never any water. We had somebody bring in some goats and the one in our industrial park, and they're a little harder to keep in, but they're on the fence anyway. We did a fantastic job. And we I don't know what the number we spend on it. We got a molar that goes and does the veins. But they're all within a square mile. I mean, it sounds like it might be a little more, but you'd have to move them. Like, they're not big sites, half acre.

[Lewis Fox]: Yep. There's a lot of opportunities for targeted grazing. I think I might know who you're talking about who did that. There's, you know, been some on ski areas in Vermont, and I think we're, you know, Delco's looking at doing some, you know, transmission lines, know, it's in the right settings. They're really effective and what we like about the solar sites so much, know, one of the key pieces that makes the solar sites work for us and makes it work to go farther afield is the perimeter fence, you know, having that secure perimeter fence. We have very low predation from coyotes. It's not zero, but it's generally lower than what we would see in a farm setting. So having that security of the perimeter fence really makes it work and makes it efficient. Some sites will subdivide with additional fence, but generally we're able to rotate by moving the sheep from site to site.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So all these storm ponds are relatively small depots, dip or or sheep in your home. You perhaps could. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Presenter, Yeah. Brian. So is water an issue?

[Lewis Fox]: We haul the water in. Yeah. So, you know, speaking of other states and the frameworks that we see, you know, in New York and In New York, the framework is, a lot of that is specific to what they call large scale renewables, so 20 megawatt plus. But there's a framework for adding water source on the site. Drilling wells, we'll see developers drill wells, Sometimes there's municipal available at the road. Sometimes there's, you know, an existing building with a water source there. You know, those large sites, you know, water sourcing is more of a key thing to think about. All of the sites that we graze now, we're hauling water to. But again, the shade is also crucial that we see, you know, half as much water consumption as we would in a normal pasture setting. Just keeps the sheep that much cooler. Yeah. Can you give us an

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: example of the compensation, whether it's, you know, specific like this 30 acre solar installation or what you try to target, you know, per sheet or something like that?

[Lewis Fox]: Absolutely. We're competitive with mowing. In some cases, we're a little cheaper than mowing. In some cases, we're a little more expensive. But we're pretty competitive in mowing because we have to be. So we find in the Northeast, you know, we're generally looking at for a full season, $3.50 to $550 an acre, and that's equivalent to about two services in one. Other parts of the country, you're looking at three to four services, You know, but the Northeast is generally two services. Sometimes this site in Sudbury, that's the cover of the handout that has bobbling restrictions. So we can't get on it with mowers until August 1. But the permit was amended so that we could graze it. So that's sort of how that works. So there's, there's some different scenarios affecting frequency of mowing, but generally we're working towards like a two service equivalent and that's you know three fifty to five fifty an acre. Sometimes you know we talk about small sites, we have a few sites that are very small and you know we're close to a thousand ish an acre for those. But again, kind of comes down to the efficiency. It's very inefficient for small sites. So we prefer larger sites. We're just, yeah. So you have

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: to come back oftentimes for a

[Lewis Fox]: second go. Well, usually graze, you know, in some cases, three or four rotations a year, depending on where the site is, you know, that kind of comes back, you know, we generally don't have to, but from the farm perspective, we want to because we have the shape to do it and we want to keep the grass nutritious state. And so especially some of the sites close to home will be through there, you know, three or four times.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Have contracts then for additional years because you're adding value, you know, in manure and raising management to these places. So I think they're becoming better pastures in subsequent years.

[Lewis Fox]: We like to think that we are making them better pastures. And I mean, what we commonly see, you know, every site's different, you know, like I mean mentioning prime ag, site on prime ag land versus not prime ag land. You know, a site on prime ag land, if it was seeded well with a good mix, is highly nutritious to begin with and very productive normally. A site that's on a hill that was maybe an old pasture or even has some areas that were cleared, the species mix can be more challenging and kind of turning that into a good pasture can be more challenging. We feel that we generally can over time, you know, generally nitrogen deposits from the sheep alters the species composition that we see on-site. And, know, like I said, we're trying to keep the vegetation in nutritious state, so we like to think we can. I think you know there's some research that bears that out as well. We try to include some of those references in there. Go ahead, Representative Burtt. Apologize, Greg Burtt, I missed the testimony, but are you aware of degree that pasturing is happening in your area?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: You know, what percentage of the solar arrays are being pastured? Sure, I do touch on that and I can't say what percent of the arrays in our area, but the Solar Grazing Association conducted a census of solar grazing in 2024. And you know what that found is in The U. S. It's about 130,000 acres, gray solar in the Northeast, which is New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and New England states.

[Lewis Fox]: It's about 4,600 acres being grazed by about 13,000 sheep, which is about 5% of the total sheep block is grazing solar sites. Is there data on the percentage of the land base that's under solar arrays? How much of that's being pastured by sheep? I don't believe there is data on how much of the total solar is being grazed. Do you do mowing as well? You mentioned what are you only doing? We have a few sites that we own. I think we have three sites that we mow just because there's some sites that are mowed for various reasons. Most of the sites that we graze, we mow to some degree as well. Know, as we clip a pasture, you know, usually we're trying to get over, you know, most of the acres once with a mower during the year.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: President Brigham, did you have a question? Oh, That was Kevin.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Do you have other people's flocks that you are using to help manage the properties that you mow and

[Lewis Fox]: pasture? Beyond what we graze, we also contract graze, you know, for some other sites that are farther afield. Yeah. So we'll, so we have about 12 farms that we work with in Maine, New York, and Illinois for other sites that are farther afield. Yeah, and then we have one, so actually just this year, we've got a young man who's working with us and is interested in starting, so we're we're placing his flock at a site in Bridgeport, you know,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: where he's from. Yep. Everybody loves to breathe.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Do you need a shepherd or someone on-site during the term of the grazing daily or twenty four hours a day?

[Lewis Fox]: Yep. Not daily. You know, usually we're there two to three times a week. I think as we start looking at, you know, some larger sites, say in New York, you know, utility scale sites to scale that grazing would be full time shepherds. We see that in other states, other parts of the country where they have, you know, quite large sites, You know, Texas, there's a lot of solar grazing in Texas, and that's all full time shepherds just because of the scale of it. But our scale, you know, we're there two or three times a week.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: What's the function of having a human there? If the site is secure from predators, you need to deal with water.

[Lewis Fox]: Other issues? Moving the sheep primarily. Yeah. I mean, if you're I mean, we're talking really large. I mean, some of those you know, sites in Texas, you know, they may have a flock of, you know, five or eight or 10,000 sheep. So you're, you know, full time moving animals, you know, catching animals that need to

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: be treated, stuff like that. I

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: was wondering, do these sites have a secure permanent fence? Is that a requirement, or do they all have them?

[Lewis Fox]: It's federal energy code, yeah. There's some sites in Vermont, very small sites that don't, and I think those are in a different, I don't know if they're in a different, you know, permanent category. They may be private, but, you know, any grid tied site federal energy code, they have to have, you know, a secured fence.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: I was just going to say, in my area, there's a goat farm, and they've had a very large dog that lives with the sheep that's raised with them. And I know of another farm in my community that I believe they had an alpaca that grew up with their sheep. And in both cases, they were considered sort of guard animals to protect against coyotes or whatever. Have you ever tried that with with your flocks or or you you feel like the fences are enough to secure?

[Lewis Fox]: No, it's a great question. Generally, the fence is secure enough. We have, you know, if we do have an incidence of a coyote getting in or something, we have a guardian dog we can place on the site. We try not to generally because you have to go every day and, you know, feed the dog, and it's just sort of a different management thing. Some people do it as standard, though. You know, there's a woman that we work with, and while we don't work with her, but, you know, we're a colleague of ours, I guess, in solar grazing. She grazes about 400 acres, and she has donkeys, you know, out with the sheep, and that's they do fine in the panels, it works out well for her. You know, we've got actually a site in Illinois that's got a llama on the sites. Generally, the fences are good enough. But, you know, as I mentioned, like, sometimes wildlife friendly fencing, you know, that kind of throws a wrench in things, so we may have to look at putting a guard a guard dock out. But mostly, it's just the sheep.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I just wondered if you'd experimented with other grazing opportunities. When I'm thinking of Central Park and right here, Average Park had sheep originally in the cemeteries. I know when I was in New Zealand, working on a sheep farm that they fenced off the greens and they had the sheep do all the grazing on the fairways and golf courses. And there's an orchardist if you'd experimented with orchards too.

[Lewis Fox]: Yes, we were part of a couple trials in New York, Cornell trials on grazing vineyards, so we did a little bit of that. But primarily we're just solar. We do, you know, I know a gentleman in New York grazes a cemetery next to a solar site. He started with a solar site and he kind of moved into the cemetery. There are people in Vermont, you know, kind of branching into some more targeted grazing. JP got some goats up there last year. There's another solar or a ski area in Southern Vermont that had some it was goats or I think it was goats. You know, again, I think there's some exploration of doing transmission lines. I think there's a lot of opportunities. I mean, we're pretty specialized. We just, you know, we're focused on the solar, but we'd really like to see it sort of grow as a business. One thing that we've started using a little bit is like GPS collars, you know, the no fence collars. That's a really new thing, and I think those could be really effective in allowing people to graze unfenced areas, because, you know, our sites are fenced, so it just allows us to do what we do. But if you've got unfenced areas like a park or a cemetery or, you know, some other places, those GPS collars can sort of expand, you know, the realm of possibilities.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So there's a certain scale that you're looking for, whether it's five acres or some number that makes it work, And there is I don't know how much solar there is in Vermont right now that is five acres or larger, but do we have enough sheep to if the owners of those properties were willing to say, sure. I believe we do. Not you, but collectively.

[Lewis Fox]: Yeah. I don't know. USDA doesn't track specifically how many sheep are in. It's just all New England. There's 55,000 sheep in New England, and you know, they're distributed somehow. I think there's plenty of sheep to, you know, graze whatever may be in the pipeline for the, you know, foreseeable future. I think we're seeing what we're seeing, you know, part of that is is described in the census of solar grazing part of this, know just because we work, you know, quite extensively in the industry, we're seeing it as a real market signal. So we are seeing people, you know, get into sheep production because of the opportunity there. I think in Vermont, there's going to be, you know, more than enough sheep exist now to graze, you know, whatever could be coming in the next ten years. But I think, people will grow. We've grown. We started with 35 sheep, and we've somehow ended up with 700. I think it's very, very doable.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You mentioned a handout, and we've got it on the committee webpage too. Is there anything you want to point out that's there?

[Lewis Fox]: The handout, mostly just bullet points. I think the big themes of what I was speaking to, but we have, you know, just describing what is solar grazing trends in the industry, impact on farm viability was got some some research, there's some very current research out of Ontario, Canada, describing margins, you know, 40% higher on sheep farms, you know, working in solar grazing. And, you know, describing that, you know, it's very productive pasture. Not every site needs to be grazed, you know, don't think it's necessarily has to be the end all be all, but agriculture is possible on them, and I, and, you know, we do not see this as a threat. As farmers, we don't see solar development as a threat that we do permanent conversion. We don't consider this to be permanent conversion because we can continue to steward the soils get agricultural income from the sites. So you know, we're just trying to describe that and point to current research on that and the productivity that's achievable on those sites and what we can see from, you know, production from a livestock perspective. So

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The only other question I have, I don't think it's come up, is whether there are sites that are otherwise suitable size wise and have a fence that wouldn't work for having for pasture and sheep for any reason?

[Lewis Fox]: Most sites work. I wouldn't say that every site works. Species mix is important. You know. We've grazed sites one year that we didn't graze after that. I mean, primarily species mix. You know, sites that are predominantly cleared forest, you know, it's a different ecosystem and they often can be brought into a fairly productive state, but it's just not the same as if it's sited on a pasture or on, you know, more fertile farmland. Sites that have a very strict native species requirement for the seeding mix, very wildflower heavy, you know, again, those can usually be grazed to some extent, but, you know, we feel that meeting pollinator goals can be done, you know, without excluding nutritious sheep forage. So, you know, sometimes those sites just don't make great grazing sites if they've been really just seeded to wildflowers. And, you know, to some extent, you may see some toxic species present on a site if it was, you know, if there was something there and it was, you know, there to such a heavy degree there wasn't much else there, which is rare, but it can happen. So there are a few things that, yeah, can make it not workable from a grazing perspective.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good. All right. Well, really appreciate all of that information. Just helpful to have a I think I knew this was happening, but didn't know the details until I heard about it on the radio the other day.

[Lewis Fox]: I appreciate you having me here to speak. I'm more than happy to, if you have any questions, just email or have me back.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Just a comment, I mean, this committee talks a lot about payment for ecosystem services. It's always hard to find who's

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: going to

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: pay. Here's an example.

[Lewis Fox]: Every one of these sites has a budget for vegetation, and it can go to the farmer.