{"id":2840,"date":"2026-08-17T14:33:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/?page_id=2840"},"modified":"2026-08-17T14:33:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:33:31","slug":"cea","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/cea\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer Perceptions of Controlled Environment Agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) presents promising opportunities to benefit American farmers and several challenges. CEA enables year-round crop production, independent of seasonal changes or weather conditions, ensuring consistent and reliable yields that reduce reliance on imports. By utilizing technologies like hydroponics and vertical farming, CEA significantly reduces water usage (up to 90% less than traditional farming) and minimizes the need for pesticides. CEA also allows for farming in urban areas, reducing road miles and providing local produce to consumers across the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"Greens<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite its benefits, CEA comes with high initial costs for equipment and infrastructure. In addition, the energy consumption for artificial lighting and climate control can be substantial with the true costs of CEA raising concerns about profitability and sustainability. Consumer concerns include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) food grown without soil or natural sunlight (e.g., hydroponically or under LEDs) is \u201cunnatural\u201d or inferior in taste and nutrition,
2) skepticism CEA-grown produce lacks the flavor of traditionally grown crops,
3) fear produce grown in controlled environments is not nutritionally equivalent to traditional counterparts,
4) lack of transparency due to unclear labeling including whether CEA-grown produce is identified and growing practices (e.g., pesticide-free, non-GMO) are disclosed clearly,
5) the significant energy inputs for lighting and HVAC, and
6) concern CEA products can be more expensive due to high production costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funded by a cooperative agreement with USDA-ARS, this project seeks to expand our knowledge base by identifying how specific segments of the U.S. population perceive CEA, motivate the scientific community to work collaboratively with growers to effectively communicate about the science behind CEA production methods, and develop science communication strategies most effective at reaching specific target consumer audiences that may influence regulation impacting CEA adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"Vegetables<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Vegetables<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Vegetables<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Vegetables
Plants in vertical farms grow with LED lights. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) presents promising opportunities to benefit American farmers and several challenges. CEA enables year-round crop production, independent of seasonal changes or weather conditions, ensuring consistent and reliable yields that reduce reliance on imports. By utilizing technologies like hydroponics and vertical farming, CEA significantly reduces water usage (up to 90% less than traditional farming) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":753,"featured_media":2844,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"caes_section_patterns":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2840","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2840"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3253,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2840\/revisions\/3253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.caes.uga.edu\/lammlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}