Finding out his sheep were arsonists probably wasn’t on Peter Cheal’s 2024 bingo card, but despite their occasional pyromaniac ways, he is still happy with the symbiosis between solar farms and grazing.

Mr Cheal, Nogoa Dorpers, Emerald, runs 600 Dorper ewes across several properties in central Queensland, including on solar farms at Tieri and Clermont.

“We saw a solar farm advertise (agistment) on Facebook at Tieri, and we were able to put a heap of ewes up there, we had 900 acres there to put sheep on,” Mr Cheal said.

“Then a couple of years later (another solar farm) rang us up and said, ‘Can you bring some sheep up to Clermont?’ so we took some sheep up there.”

Mr Cheal said it is a good system, with free water and agistment in return for keeping the fire risk down.

“We had 500 ewes up there (at Tieri) at that stage, and we’ve got about 400 ewes up at Clermont; we’ve still got them there now.”

CLICK HERE to read the full article by Melanie Groves for the Queensland Country Life.