{"id":39300,"date":"2022-03-21T16:17:58","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T16:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldwire.co.uk\/?p=39300"},"modified":"2022-03-21T16:17:58","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T16:17:58","slug":"sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheffield\u2019s ground-breaking solar solution to boost crops in East Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A successful trial, dubbed as \u2018harvesting the sun twice\u2019, found growing crops beneath solar panels resulted in larger plants and reduced water.<\/p>\n<p>The concept, known as agrivoltaics, enabled a farm in Kenya to grow cabbages 21% larger than usual.<\/p>\n<p>A researcher on the project from the University of Sheffield, Dr Richard Randle-Boggis, 33, said the long and short-term benefits of the new solution to crop growth were innumerable.<\/p>\n<p>He said one of the key pros was the system provided low carbon electricity.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Randle-Boggis continued: \u201cAnother long term benefit is potential for climate change and resilience because the solar panels reduce daytime air temperatures and UV damage and water loss.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As the climate is changing and rainfall becomes more unpredictable and temperature is increasing, then solar panels could help abate those more extreme conditions then in an open field system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the project has been met with exceptionally good reviews across the board.<\/p>\n<p>However, it was not always received in such a way.<\/p>\n<p>When Dr Randle-Boggis first presented the project to farms in East Africa he was met with questions as to how it would be beneficial for them.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_39304\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-39304\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-39304\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheffieldwire.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2022\/03\/2022-02-14-14.09.28-1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-39304\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo of the farmers with Dr. Richard in Kenya. Photo credit: Chloride Exide ltd.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI remember speaking with a solar developer in Uganda about agrivoltaics and he said why are you talking to me about tomatoes, yet he was an energy developer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThankfully one of his colleagues realised the importance of what was being done and saw that the water saving was a goal of the government. It is important to think of the holistic solutions and outside of the box.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The turning point was when a training farm south of Nairobi accepted they wanted agrivoltaics to be on their site.<\/p>\n<p>The site was up and running in May 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, they have had interest globally in countries that are in South America, Southern Europe and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<p>Data is currently being collected to see how the agrovoltaics system will benefit multiple terrains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A successful trial, dubbed as \u2018harvesting the sun twice\u2019, found growing crops beneath solar panels resulted in larger plants and reduced water. The concept, known as agrivoltaics, enabled a farm in Kenya to grow cabbages 21% larger than usual. A researcher on the project from the University of Sheffield, Dr Richard Randle-Boggis, 33, said the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":39309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sheffield\u2019s ground-breaking solar solution to boost crops in East Africa - Sheffield Wire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The successful trial - dubbed as \u2018harvesting the sun twice\u2019 - found that growing crops beneath solar panels resulted in larger plants and reduced water.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sheffield\u2019s ground-breaking solar solution to boost crops in East Africa - Sheffield Wire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The successful trial - dubbed as \u2018harvesting the sun twice\u2019 - found that growing crops beneath solar panels resulted in larger plants and reduced water.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sheffield Wire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-21T16:17:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/IMG_20210729_113246.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jessica Lionnel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jessica Lionnel\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jessica Lionnel\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/699a3eab823a71a951abeda8b54777cd\"},\"headline\":\"Sheffield\u2019s ground-breaking solar solution to boost crops in East Africa\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-21T16:17:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/\"},\"wordCount\":351,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/IMG_20210729_113246.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sheffieldwire.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/03\/21\/sheffields-ground-breaking-solar-solution-to-boost-crops-in-east-africa\/\",\"name\":\"Sheffield\u2019s ground-breaking solar solution to boost crops in East Africa - 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