Agrivoltaics: A Climate-Smart Agriculture Approach for Indian Farmers

Abstract

India is a leader when it comes to agriculture. A significant part of the country’s population depends on agriculture for livelihood. However, many of them face challenges due to using unreliable farming techniques. Sometimes the challenges increase to the extent that they commit suicide. Besides, India is highly populated, and its population is steadily increasing, requiring its government to grow its GDP and increase its energy supply proportionately. This paper reviews integrating solar farming with agriculture, known as Agrivoltaics, as a Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) option for Indian farmers. This study is further supported by the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis of agrivoltaics. Using the SWOT analysis, this article presents how agrivoltaics can make agriculture sustainable and reliable. This paper identifies rural electrification, water conservation, yield improvement, sustainable income generation, and reduction in the usage of pesticides as the strengths of agrivoltaics. Similarly, the paper presents weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to agrivoltaics in India. The research concludes with the findings that agrivoltaics have the potential of meeting multiple objectives such as meeting global commitments, offering employment, providing economic stability, increasing clean energy production capacity, conserving natural resources, and succeeding in several others. The paper also includes a discussion about the findings, suggestions, and implications of adopting agrivoltaics on a large scale in India.