Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is the technology that allows cultivation of plants under preferred environmental conditions; within structures such as greenhouses, hydroponics, aquaculture, or aquaponics. By using CEA, we can produce high- value crops at maximum productivity in an efficient and environmentally friendly way. Moreover horticultural practices for crops can be optimized when grown under controlled conditions.
Significance: The strategy integrates science and engineering based approach to provide specific environments for plant productivity while optimizing resources including water, energy, space, capital, and labor. Well managed CEA operations can provide high- quality fresh produce, free of agriculture chemicals.
Different Systems for CEA
- Hydroponics: It is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Terrestrial plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium, such as perlite, gravel, mineral wool, expanded clay pebbles or coconut husk. The environment of the plants can be efficiently controlled inside the grow room which directly impacts the productivity positively.
- Greenhouses: A greenhouse is a structural building with different types of covering materials, such as a glass or plastic roof and frequently glass or plastic walls; it heats up because incoming visible solar radiation (for which the glass is transparent) from the sun is absorbed by plants, soil, and other things inside the building. Air warmed by the heat from hot interior surfaces is retained in the building by the roof and wall. In addition, the warmed structures and plants inside the greenhouse re-radiate some of their thermal energy in the infrared spectrum, to which glass is partly opaque, so some of this energy is also trapped inside the glasshouse. However, this latter process is a minor player compared with the former (convective) process. Thus, the primary heating mechanism of a greenhouse is convection. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature drops considerably. This principle is the basis of the autovent automatic cooling system. Thus, the glass used for a greenhouse works as a barrier to air flow, and its effect is to trap energy within the greenhouse. The air that is warmed near the ground is prevented from rising indefinitely and flowing away.
- Aquaculture: Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants. Freshwater and saltwater populations are cultivated under controlled conditions, on the contrary to commercial fishing, wherein wild fishes are harvested. Broadly speaking, aquaculture is akin to agriculture. According to the FAO, aquaculture is understood to mean the farming of aquatic organisms including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants. Particular kinds of aquaculture include fish farming, shrimp farming, oyster farming, algaculture (such as seaweed farming), and the cultivation of ornamental fish. Particular methods include aquaponics and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, both of which integrate fish farming and plant farming.
- Aquaponics: Aquaponics or pisciponics, is a sustainable food production system that combines conventional aquaculture, (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks), with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. In aquaculture, effluents accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity for the fish. This water is led to a hydroponic system where the by-products from the aquaculture are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, then filtered out by the plants as nutrients, after which the cleaned water is re-circulated back to the animals. As existing hydroponic and aquaculture farming techniques form the basis for all aquaponics systems, the size, complexity, and types of foods grown in an aquaponics system can vary as much as any system found in either distinct farming discipline
4. Aquaponics: Aquaponics or pisciponics, is a sustainable food production system that combines conventional aquaculture, (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks), with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. In aquaculture, effluents accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity for the fish. This water is led to a hydroponic system where the by-products from the aquaculture are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, then filtered out by the plants as nutrients, after which the cleaned water is re-circulated back to the animals. As existing hydroponic and aquaculture farming techniques form the basis for all aquaponics systems, the size, complexity, and types of foods grown in an aquaponics system can vary as much as any system found in either distinct farming discipline
