I kind of wish we would have went bigger,” Stuart Lavalier said.
Stuart Lavalier has been making improvements to his farm in northern Minnesota for years, but his latest addition is already a true cash crop. Lavalier’s Berry Patch and Orchard started off with strawberries and grew to include pumpkins, blueberries, honeyberries, lingonberries, cherries and apples. Now, the berry patch has one more money-maker: a 27.3-kilowatt solar array that zeroes out his electricity bill and adds to the farm’s income stream.
“We’re seeing a negative number on our electric bill,” Lavalier told Resource Rural. “We don’t have a huge electricity bill, but the solar covers it.”
In his first year with the array, he’s already seeing the benefit to the farm’s bottom line. “We’ve been getting a check back each month of about $300.”
Making a Decision on Solar
Solar has been on Lavalier’s mind for years. He first heard about it at a Minnesota growers’ conference, where he met a farmer who was committed to planting solar seeds for the next generation. “He talked about how we need to be thinking about the future,” Lavalier said. “I thought that was a good answer.”
He liked the idea, and it wouldn’t be the first time Lavalier made a change to grow the berry patch. As the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources helped him erect a 10-foot fence to keep animals out of the berries, one of the guys made an offhand comment: “Now you can grow apples.” This remark was the spark that prompted him to plant 15 apple trees back in 2000, Lavalier told Hometown Focus. He now has more than 1,000.
But his early interest in solar simmered for a few years, until he heard about a grant that would cover as much as half of the cost of installing solar panels. The USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) offers loans and grants for farmers, ranchers and rural small business owners who want to save their business some money by lowering their energy bills with renewable energy. The program funds projects that increase energy efficiency or convert farms to solar and wind producers—pollution-free income-producing options that protect the water and land that farmers work so hard to care for every day of the year.
“Once I knew I wanted to get solar on our farm, I found out about the REAP grant,” Lavalier told Resource Rural. “It made a difference. It made me feel comfortable going ahead, because then I knew I had that additional support to make it work.”
In Lavalier’s case, his 27.3-kilowatt solar array provides more than enough to power his operation and puts energy back into the grid, earning him that $300 monthly credit. Now that he’s getting a $300 check every month, Lavalier reflected on the decision to go solar with just a hint of regret. “I kind of wish we would have went bigger,” he said.
A True Family Farm
Lavalier’s Berry Patch and Orchard has been a family operation from the start. His parents, Loran and Margaret Lavalier, helped him with the weeding and picking after the first strawberries were planted, and as the farm grew, his siblings, his wife, Carol, and their three children, all kept the berry patch running and growing. He served as an elementary school teacher in his community for more than 30 years, running the farm full-time in the summers, when he had a break from his teaching duties.
Lavalier retired from teaching in 2010, and he now has more time to dedicate to the berry patch and orchard. His independent thinking has helped grow the operation over the years: In addition to producing clean energy on his land, he found hardy cherries rated for USDA Zone 2 to plant, and he grows dwarf apple varieties along a trellis system that makes it easier to pick apples from the ground. Being an agricultural producer in northern Minnesota isn’t always easy, but Lavalier appreciates the homegrown support for farmers around the small town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
“The people in northern Minnesota understand and appreciate the work that goes into farming in our part of the state,” Lavalier told Minnesota Grown. “Their kind words of gratitude and support have kept me going when Mother Nature has sometimes put rumble strips in my path.”
