Renewables to be hosted by Will Wilson's family properties at Calliope

Mr Wilson of Calliope Cattle Company, a 50,000 acre (20,234 ha) family-owned breeder and backgrounding property, said the family had agreed renewable energy was going to play a part in their future.

"As a business, we've taken a favourable outlook on what renewable energy can bring our business in the future," he said.

"I think diversity is going to be the important part to make sure we can weather situations like the last six months of low cattle prices better than what we have from an animal welfare perspective, a business profitability perspective and...environmentally.

"We can't manage environmental variations unless we've got financial sustainability."

Mr Wilson said they had the gas pipeline come through their country and thought it was going to be the end of the world.

"And we're out the other side of the gas now and working out how to live with it," he said.

"Society gets emotional about where they want their power supply to come from as well as their beef product, but one of the sad parts is there's not enough security in the value of beef production to look after our animal welfare and landscapes...with the money that comes in from animal production

"So, we think we can use a guaranteed income from some parts of our land to help maintain other parts of our land better from an environmental perspective."

Mr Wilson said to stay in this industry over a long period of time "you need to entertain the best genetics, the best animal production, the best environmental management and...unlock the opportunities that come with it".

"And, maybe, this is the next phase of that where society is growing and has demand for power. We produce beef because that's what we could produce on the land so if we can produce power maybe it's a market we can entertain," he said.

"We have options on projects at the moment, we haven't got a project (yet), but we're learning a lot about the projects.

"Obviously, we have the concerns that everybody else has about how they're going to sustainably do it and I've been looking at other projects, been to visit other projects to see how they're sustaining the landscape and it appears the landscapes are holding fairly well.

"In some cases, wind (farms) open up some of that country a little bit, giving us fire breaks and that sort of thing (and) helps contain some of our bigger risks which are fires and puts us in a bit better situation."

James Walker of Camden Park Station, Longreach, who has had a 52,000 panel solar farm on his organic cattle property since May 2018, said he would encourage others to look at the opportunity of renewables.

And, while he declined to give details of the income he earns from the solar farm lease, Mr Walker said it supported their diversification during drought which was a good reason to have it.

"I commend Will (Wilson) for exploring these opportunities to stimulate the local economy. Will is a thought leader and an innovator," he said.

Mr Wilson said one of the hardest things as a beef producer was making a plan beyond one's lifespan of 50 years.

"So you need to be thinking about your children and your children's children or whoever may be on the land in 50 years time - what's it going to look like when they're finished or what is it going to look like when they're managing it," he said.

Mr Wilson said they would not be where they were today if they were not comfortable about the project.

"Does that mean we're 100 per cent comfortable, not really," he said.

"I'm sure my decommissioning bond is different to what other people have signed and they vary from producer to producer, and project to project and that's why I think that as a State we need to have a unified position to make sure...these projects, at the end of life, are not going to be a mess."

Mr Walker said he initially decided to set up a solar farm on his property at the start of the drought when people were starting to leave Longreach.

He said they needed to have a large-scale project to try and retain some of the tradespeople and talent in Longreach when there was a downturn.

"So we approached a few solar developers and we got funding through them. We initiated the project and they took it over so hence we just leased the land to the solar company."

Mr Walker said the solar farm owned by the Foresight Group put electricity back into the grid, but had the capacity to supply electricity to between 7000 to 8000 houses.

He said during its construction peak it employed about 60 people and was still performing quite well.

"We graze sheep underneath it to keep the grass down and we just provide any civil work that we can to the (solar) farm as a side income, but it's just a great offset, a counter cyclical investment, to farming agriculture out there," he said.

"It's a 30-year lease, but they are wanting to extend to around 60 so, yes, it's quite good. It will be interesting to see how it performs later in its life cycle, but they've used high quality materials."

Mr Walker said there had been no issues with his neighbours about the farm which occupied 150 hectares of his 8000 hectares and was not near any residential land.

"In fact it's been quite welcome," he said.

"We'd love it to increase in size as it's such a great thing, but the infrastructure that's currently available can't support any more load."

Mr Walker said his only regret was that he did not set up a community fund before the project got underway so locals could invest in the solar farm so any income made could support local commerce and stay in the town.

QFF has a "New Renewable Energy Landholder Toolkit" to support Queensland landholders if they are looking at hosting renewables on qff.org.au