In a dusty Texas field, Chad Raines surveys his new crop — sheep.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would be a shepherd," Raines said.

The Raines family has farmed cotton for four generations. But years of bad harvests and low prices drove him to give it up for good.

"After about three to four years of just not making any progress, just not even breaking — I mean we were losing money and that debt was rolling over, adding to it every year. So I had to look at doing something different. I had to think outside the box," Raines said.

So he became part of a growing trend: abandoning traditional farming for what's called solar grazing , renting out sheep as lawn mowers for solar farms .

Green energy company Enel North America owns a solar farm near Waco, Texas. Wi

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