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."