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<p>Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) has emerged as a high-tech solution to urban food security. However, its development has largely been driven by venture capital and profit-maximizing imperatives, resulting in limited CEA scalability, narrow crop diversity, and minimal engagement with issues of spatial equity—defined here as the fair distribution of food infrastructure across urban geographies. This Perspective calls for a paradigm shift: positioning CEA not as a standalone technological fix, but as a component of urban infrastructure that integrates into urban systems to deliver co-benefits for food justice, public health, and environmental resilience. We argue that the public value of CEA should be a central aim of CEA deployment, guiding both research and planning agendas. To advance this vision, we highlight the potential of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) as underexplored tools to enable adaptive crop management, site-specific decision support, and identify underserved communities for targeted interventions. When combined with urban informatics approaches, these technologies can help embed CEA within inclusive, data-informed, and climate-resilient city systems. We conclude by outlining priorities for a public-interest CEA agenda that aligns with sustainable urban development and spatial justice.</p>

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Controlled environment agriculture as urban infrastructure: advancing a public agenda for spatial equity

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月15日

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  • Xudong Rao,
  • Azlan Zahid,
  • Xinyue Ye,
  • Devika Jain,
  • Nick Duffield

摘要

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) has emerged as a high-tech solution to urban food security. However, its development has largely been driven by venture capital and profit-maximizing imperatives, resulting in limited CEA scalability, narrow crop diversity, and minimal engagement with issues of spatial equity—defined here as the fair distribution of food infrastructure across urban geographies. This Perspective calls for a paradigm shift: positioning CEA not as a standalone technological fix, but as a component of urban infrastructure that integrates into urban systems to deliver co-benefits for food justice, public health, and environmental resilience. We argue that the public value of CEA should be a central aim of CEA deployment, guiding both research and planning agendas. To advance this vision, we highlight the potential of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) as underexplored tools to enable adaptive crop management, site-specific decision support, and identify underserved communities for targeted interventions. When combined with urban informatics approaches, these technologies can help embed CEA within inclusive, data-informed, and climate-resilient city systems. We conclude by outlining priorities for a public-interest CEA agenda that aligns with sustainable urban development and spatial justice.