Controlled Environment

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

CEA covers two sectors: plant growing systems that evolved from greenhouses or aquaculture-based structures requiring light, and mushroom (fungi) growing systems that evolved from fully enclosed structures with limited lighting. Plants are often grown in a soilless medium to supply proper amounts of water and nutrients to the root zone, with supplemental lighting to ensure a sufficient daily light integral. CEA technologies include hydroponics, aeroponics, aquaculture, and aquaponics. Mushrooms are grown in a compost medium with temperature, humidity, lighting, supplemental nutrients, and atmospheric supplements such as Oxygen or CO2 added depending on the crop type. As of 2019, the mushroom industry was the largest CEA sector in the United States by facility size and total value of sales. The greenhouse industry is the second largest component, but another quickly growing segment is the vertical farming industry, though vertical farming has struggled financially. Some methods of harvesting like cut-and-come-again can be profitable for high-value crops like greens in vertical farms.

In Their Own Story

In 2015, AeroFarms opened what was reportedly the largest indoor farm in the world in Newark, New Jersey. By 2018, it had built its 10th indoor farm. However, as of June 2023, AeroFarms filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing 'significant industry and capital market headwinds.' Premier Mushrooms, founded in 2001 as Colusa Mushrooms, was reportedly one of the first nearly fully closed-loop growing CEA facilities in the United States, with a farm in Colusa, California. Premier Mushroom went through bankruptcy restructuring in 2004 and 2009, eventually being sold to an international operator in 2020. The economics of indoor farming has been challenging, with high capital investment and energy operating costs—particularly the price of electricity—and several startups shut down as a result. A 2018 U.S. survey found only 51% of indoor farming operations profitable.

Reader's Guide

CEA facilities can range from fully 100% environmentally controlled enclosed closed-loop systems to automated glasshouses with computer controls for watering, lighting, and ventilation. Low-tech solutions such as cloches or plastic film on field-grown crops and plastic-covered tunnels are referred to as modified environment agriculture. CEA methods can be used to grow literally any crop, though the reality is a crop has to be economically viable, which varies considerably due to local market pricing and resource costs. Currently, tomatoes, leafy greens, and herbs are the most economically viable crops. Controllable environmental variables include temperature (air, nutrient solution, root-zone, leaf), relative humidity (%RH), carbon dioxide (CO2), and light (intensity, spectrum, duration, intervals). Cultural variables include water quality, nutrient concentration (PPM of Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus, etc.), nutrient pH, cropping duration and density, cultivar, and pest controls. CEA farms are mainly located in buildings resembling warehouses, but other types are used as well. Mushroom production can be adapted to abandoned and underutilized farm infrastructure including barns, outbuildings, high tunnels, and storage facilities.

Did You Know?

• As of 2019, the mushroom industry was the largest CEA sector in the United States by facility size and total value of sales.
• A 2018 U.S. survey found only 51% of indoor farming operations profitable.
• The US mushroom growing sector reported 19,473 million square feet of indoor mushroom farms in the 2022-2023 growing cycle.
• A 2020 U.S. survey found that typical indoor agriculture crops consumed between US$0.47 (for leafy greens) and US$1.38 (for microgreens) in inputs per pound of crop yield.
• In the Asia-Pacific region, indoor farming is expected to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29%, growing from a 2021 value of US$0.77 billion to a 2026 value of US$2.77 billion.