Progress 03/01/24 to 01/07/25

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences were 184 registered participants who attended the 2024 controlled environment agriculture (CEA) workshop in Charleston, SC on July 9-12, 2024, which far exceed the original goal of 100 people. Most of the participants were researchers from land-grant universities and other academic institutions and R&D scientists from private CEA companies, including CEA Alliance. Several agency leaderships were invited to offer their support to CEA industry in their opening remarks, including USDA-REE Deputy Under Secretary, ARS Deputy Administrator, NASA's Division Director, DOE Senior Technical Advisor, the Center Director of the Clemson University's Coastal Research and Education Center, and the Executive Director of CEA Alliance. In addition, a post-meeting report was presented to the USDA Urban and Innovative Agriculture Interagency Committee (60 members) and another invited presentation at the North Dakota CEA Conference in Fargo, ND with another 50 members, including several tribal representatives fromthe State of North Dakota. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The 2024 National CEA workshop offered a valuable platform and opportunities for networking and collaboration by bringing together 184 participants from federal and state governmental agencies, academic researchers and private industry representatives. Several graduate students, postdoctoral associates and early career scientists were participated in the presentations and discussions. After the meeting, the PD was invited to give an overview of the 2024 National CEA Workshop to the USDA urban agriculture and innovation internal committee meeting virtually and offer an in-person presentation at the first North Dakota CEA Conference in Fargo, ND. Several grant applications had been submitted, including a USDA-NIFA AFRI application, another application to the NSF Foundational Research on Robotics program and a pre-proposal to the USDA-NIFA SCRI program. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have attracted 184 strong participants nationwide and some internationally to the 2024 National CEA workshop in Charleston, SC, with approximately one third coming from the U.S. CEA industry, anther one third from academic institutions and the rest one third from governmental agencies. In addition, the PD was invited to make presentations to the USDA urban Agriculture and Innovation internal advisory committee meeting and the 2024 North Dakota CEA conference to reach out to tribal communities in that region. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The project has been completed and all the goals were successfully accomplished.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The national CEA workshop series was organized by federal agencies including USDA-DOE-NASA, in collaboration with public academic universities. In 2018, the inaugural meeting was held at the USDA headquarter in Washington D.C. In 2019, in collaboration with the University of Arizona, a successful meeting was held at the Biosphere 2 in Arizona. In 2021, a virtual CEA meeting was held on-line due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. In 2023, a joint CEA workshop was organized by USDA-ARS at the University of Toledo, with over 120 participants. In 2024, in partnership with Clemson University, USDA-ARS organized a joint national workshop on CEA in Charleston, SC with 184 registered participants. The 2024 meeting was the fifth in the series. We have 2 days technical presentations with 11 specific topics. On the Day-1 (July 9, 2024), excellent opening remarks were offered by the USDA-REE Deputy Under Secretary; followed by the USDA-ARS Deputy Administrator for Crop Production and Protection; Division Director of theNASA Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS), Senior Technical Advisor for Department of Energy Undersecretary of Science and Energy; Director of Clemson University's Coastal Research & Education Center; and the Executive Director of the CEA Alliance. The specific topics at the 2024 CEA workshop in the first two days include 1). CEA industry stakeholder discussion to identify the challenges and opportunities; 2). Onsite/nearby energy and renewable integration; 3) Innovation in Controlled Environment Agriculture: Learning from Experience; 4). Innovative technologies on artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation; 5). Federal funding opportunities for CEA research and development; 6). Artificial light efficiency to improve photosynthesis; 7). Water and CEA: a complicated relationship; 8). Plant breeding, adaptation and trialing varieties for CEA; 9) Managing pests, diseases and microbiome; 10). Food processing, quality, safety, and nutrition.; and 11). Marketing, food distribution and social economic impact. In addition, a poster session was held with 22 posters. To enhance hands-on experience, we also organized a field educational tour on the Day-3 (July 11, 2024) with nearly 100 people participating, to tour a CEA shipping container manufacturing company (AmplifiedAg), a conventional field vegetable producer (Ambrose Family Farms), the Clemson University greenhouse and field vegetable productions, and the USDA-ARS research facilities and indoor CEA vertical farming for research. Discussion on the needs for research was held in the morning on the Day-4 (July 12, 2024). The needs for research identified are: 1). Energy efficiency (renewable energy and home indoor gardening); 2). Robotics (pollination, pruning and harvesting, even cleaning and disinfection); 3). Genetic and breeding for CEA (screening germplasm and adaptation in CEA); 4). Foods as medicines (specialty crops with health benefits to consumers); 5). Pests, diseases and pollinators (prevention, protection and biocontrol); 6). Microbiome and beneficial micros (protecting and promoting crop production); 7). Phytonutrient analysis, proteomic and metabolomic (health benefits to consumers); and 8). Social economic impact of CEA (lowering the barrier of the CEA technology so the public can benefit from it).

Publications