Agrivoltaics offers 'one land, two harvests'. Examine its potential and limitations for India's smallholder-dominated agriculture.

Agrivoltaics means mounting solar panels above farmland so that crops keep growing underneath [1]. India's average landholding is only 0.96 ha, and over 85% of farmers are small or marginal [1]. For them, getting both food and power from the same plot is attractive. Whether it works depends on the design, the finance and how water is governed.

Potential

• Energy scale: TERI puts the technical potential at about 47.5 Mha, around 30% of India's cropland [2]. A 16 Mha deployment could produce 12,775 TWh/yr, which is more than even the highest estimate of India's 2050 power demand [1].
• Farm income: Power sales give a second, steady income. Farmers move from "Annadata" (food provider) to "Urjadata" (energy provider) [1].
• Agronomic gains: Field results show 10–20% higher yields for some crops and about 30% less water use, because panel shade cuts evaporation [1].
• Scheme fit: PM-KUSUM Component A already allows solar plants on stilts over cultivable land [3]. Siting projects near cold-chain and market facilities mapped under PMGSY and SAMPADA would make them more viable [1].
• Rural jobs: FPOs, rural youth and women can be trained to run and maintain the systems [1].

Limitations

• Poor track record: The Standing Committee on Energy found Component A at only about 6% of its target [4].
• Finance and grid access: MNRE itself lists slow bank loans and no land near substations as barriers [5]. Agrivoltaics will face the same problems.
• Small-plot economics: Raised structures and spacing for machines cost about the same on a small plot, but a 1-ha plot earns less power to pay for them [1].
• Groundwater risk: Solar power is almost free once installed, which can encourage over-pumping. Letting the DISCOM buy surplus power, as under Component C, gives farmers a reason to save it instead [3].
• Thin evidence: The yield gains hold only for some crops, and the TERI figures are technical estimates, not targets [1][2].

Agrivoltaics can ease India's food–energy–land trilemma, but only if smallholders are pooled through FPOs and projects are placed near substations. Subsidies should be tied to groundwater metering, and crop-wise trials should come before scale-up. Acting on the Standing Committee's call for tighter monitoring [4] would help turn "one land, two harvests" into steady income for farmers. It would also advance SDG 2 and SDG 7.