Bumblebees buzz from flower to flower, stopping for a moment under a clear blue Minnesota sky. Birds chirp, and tall grasses blow in the breeze. This isn't a scene from a pristine nature preserve or national park. It is nestled between photovoltaic (PV) solar arrays on rehabilitated farmland.
You can even grow crops underneath! :-D
That is a another good concept, but that is exactly not what this study was about, haha! This study was about using land that had been farmland for solar and restoring the natural plant life of the area. This increased the insect population dramatically, including many pollinator species, so using less productive fields for solar/natural habitat instead could further increase the yields of better fields in the area.
Absolutely! Industrial agriculture techniques can easily destroy soil & are very carbon intensive themselves due to the way we get a lot of fertilizer from fossil fuels, transport & fuel everything.
For a more wholesome example, you can put chicken coops on top of the lauded
FISH-RICE INTEGRATION TECHNIQUES 📢📢📢🗣️🗣️🗣️🔊📢📢🗣️🗣️🔊🔊
then put solar panels on top of the coops.
The chickens go and eat pests around the rice too and fertilize a bit lol