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Optimizing Indoor Agriculture
for leafy green production

Optimizing Indoor Agriculture
for leafy green production

Optimia University - Click here

Welcome to SCRI OptimIA

Rapid global population growth and urbanization have increased demand for local year-round production of healthy, affordable fruits and vegetables.

This rising demand is fueled by consumer perception that produce transported from mild-climate field-production sites deteriorates in freshness and product quality upon arrival at distant markets. Another aspect of the local-grown movement is the desire to move toward environmental sustainability.

Controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) production is the only feasible way to achieve local production year-round in seasonal climates. When cropping areas are stacked vertically within buildings, with overhead light-emitting diode (LED) lighting at each level, this platform of CEA is termed vertical or indoor farming (IF).

OptimIA (Optimizing Indoor Agriculture) is a USDA-supported Specialty Crop Research Initiative project to help this emerging industry be more profitable and sustainable through critical research and extension activities.

Our long-term project goals are to help integrate indoor farming into the specialty-crop segment of agriculture in the U.S.; to increase the sustainability and hence profitability of this rapidly emerging sector; and to locally produce leafy greens that have higher quality attributes.

More information on our project is in these press releases:

MSU leads study exploring the viability of using indoor farming to grow leafy greens, Michigan State Univ. (Jan. 2020).

Researchers to study viability of vertically farming leafy greens, Univ. of Arizona (Feb. 2020).

Michigan State University’s specialty crop research initiative grant funded by the USDA.

Improving the profitability and sustainability of indoor leafy-greens production

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