Enabling Agri Energy Justice: Incorporating agricultural and energy justice into utility-scale onshore wind development on agricultural land

This study aims to examine the critical socio-legal interaction between agriculture and onshore wind by offering a novel Agri Energy Justice (AEJ) framework. The AEJ Framework builds on existing energy justice conceptualisations and emphasises the significance of addressing agricultural interests and risks as a foundational step for onshore wind development through the unique pillar of ‘nexus justice’. The Australian state of Victoria is undertaking a significant socio-technical energy transition in response to net-zero policies and increasing climate change risks. While immense renewable energy potential exists in Victoria, including onshore wind energy, successful development requires a reoriented strategic approach to co-locate with agriculture and provide a potential blueprint for regions hosting wind development. In examining legal gaps and stakeholder perspectives in the Wimmera Southern Mallee (WSM) region of Victoria, Australia, this study highlights the often-perceived conflicting policy objectives of concurrently achieving energy decarbonisation and agricultural land preservation. We adopt a mixed-methods socio-legal and qualitative approach, including semi-structured interviews with experts from the agricultural and energy sectors in the WSM, to capture critical stakeholder perspectives. Building on existing energy transition literature, we identify several factors and regulatory principles to enable or potentially limit agricultural activity coexistence with onshore wind and identify key themes from semi-structured interviews categorised in the four principles of the AEJ framework. Our proposed AEJ framework introduces a new paradigm recognising agricultural landholders and activities as an essential sociotechnical and legal process relevant to countries aiming to align onshore wind development with agricultural land uses. AEJ can clarify the values embedded in agricultural sectors, reduce social conflicts, enhance economic benefits, and ultimately, lower socio-technical risks associated with onshore wind development. The resulting study provides insights into the need for proactive legal reform to ensure countries prioritising agricultural land uses can simultaneously achieve justice, decarbonisation, and sustained agricultural output enshrined in AEJ principles.