Controlled Environmental Agriculture (CEA) operations are rapidly expanding across the United States. With this rapid expansion comes a number of uncertainties, along with the potential to disrupt the entire California leafy greens industry. This new industry shift poses questions such as:
- Will consumer demand for local or food safety concerns play a significant role in driving the growth of CEA?
- Will retailers vertically integrate on a large scale by opening their own CEA operations?
- Is the CEA movement simply a blip on the competitive radar, or will it truly disrupt the industry?
At the end of the day, CEA will likely have winners and losers as a steep learning curve confronts the players in their path to profitability.
Don Goodwin, president of Golden Sun Marketing, will address the complexity of this shifting industry at the Purdue Food and Agribusiness Executive Summit. Engage with Don as he discusses consumer trends and the rising costs of California-based agricultural production and transportation. He will also cover the significant investments in the CEA space that will position indoor growers to capture notable market share across the U.S. Additionally, Joe Messer, CEO of Pure Green Farms, will provide real-time perspective from his leadership role of the newest contender CEA operation that broke ground last month outside of South Bend, IN.