CEA
CEA AND THE HUMAN TOUCH Advancements in Controlled Environment Agriculture BY JAN TEGLER
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f you’ve ever walked into a greenhouse infused (primarily leafy greens), lower overall yield, and with light, warmth, and color in the dead of winter, thin operating/profit margins. you’ve experienced controlled environment agriResearch and investment in “smart CEA,” part of culture (CEA). the new movement toward digital agriculture, will The simple idea of covering crops to protect them solve some of these challenges. Investment in human from temperature fluctuation, weather extremes, capital will take CEA further. disease, and pests – basic CEA – has been around since Roman times, but it wasn’t until the 17th SMART CEA century that the modern concept of the greenhouse was born. Today, greenhouses and other CEA structures – Technology is being applied to CEA as never from repurposed industrial buildings to container before. Smart CEA leverages advances in softfarms – are in use globally and produce a wide ware-based environmental monitoring and control variety of crops. Light, air temperature, relative systems and automation along with cloud-based humidity, carbon dioxide, soil acidity, and nutrients data collection and analytics to make indoor farming are the main elements CEA regulates, allowing more efficient. New, primarily small, techvegetables, fruit, and flowers to be cultivated nology companies are offering an array of inteToday, in ideal growing conditions that would be grated solutions for managing CEA operations, greenhouses impossible to achieve consistently in tradiselling subscription-based services to estabtional open-field agriculture. greenhouse growers and CEA start-ups. and other CEA lished Soil-based growing systems in modern GrowFlux, Inc., a 5-year-old firm based in structures – greenhouses still comprise the largest segment Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a good example of CEA, but indoor farming, particularly vertical from repurposed of the trend. Founded by Eric Eisele, an entrefarming in urban settings, is growing steadily preneur/engineer with experience in the industrial with hydroponic and aeroponic systems. In industrial Internet of Things, the company 2017, the global indoor farming market was manufactures connected horticultural lighting buildings to valued at $106.6 billion and is expected to and sensing solutions and indoor agriculture register a compound annual growth rate of container farms automation systems. 3.4 percent between 2018 and 2023. North Artificial lighting-based indoor agricul– are in use America accounted for nearly 44.2 percent of ture systems are receiving “huge interest” globally and the global market in 2017. from vertical farming operators, technology With United Nations predictions that by produce a wide companies, and investors, says Murat Kacira, 2050, more than two-thirds of the world’s Ph.D., director of the Controlled Environment 9 billion people will live in cities, CEA can variety of crops. Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona. contribute significantly to the year-round “That’s where you’ll find software compaproduction of fresh vegetables in urban nies, cloud computing/data analytics compaareas, according to the U.S. Department of nies, even those dealing with artificial intelligence Agriculture. But the agency also acknowledges the and machine-learning,” Kacira said. “There’s huge challenges to modern CEA, including high startinvestment from companies like Amazon and up costs, high energy consumption and costs, Google, banks, and other investors – not only for the comparatively limited number and variety of use in the vertical farming sector but also to make crops that vertical farming can currently produce them available for greenhouse operations.”
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