For decades, greenhouse horticulture quietly scaled actual by world provide chains. In more unique years, a new generation of vertical farms, unique greenhouse objects, and high-tech systems captured headlines and endeavor capital with guarantees of disruption. The unconventional CEA development surged, then busted and entered the trough of disillusionment — and now the query is: what comes next?
To plan this moment, I asked leaders from actual by the area CEA spectrum — including growers, researchers, technologists, and protection consultants — for his or her boldest predictions for 2026. Their insights existing no longer correct where the sector is headed, but the strategy it’s evolving into something more integrated, resilient, and grounded.
🛒 Vertical Farming Joins the Retail Present Chain
Endre Thesen Harnes, Chief Industrial Officer, Avisomo (Norway)
“2026 will discover the critical immense-scale integration of vertical farming into retailer provide chains.”
“We’re already seeing indicators of this with partnerships like Avisomo and Coop Norway, or Schwarz Personnel’s joint endeavor vertical farms. These are no longer facet initiatives; they are strategic shifts. Very like how critical stores brought coffee roasting in-home in the ’80s and ’90s, I judge food stores will increasingly more feature their very relish vertical farms. This permits stores to capture vendor margins whereas aligning with their very relish-label ambitions and ESG obligations. It’s a transformative model, no longer correct for vertical farming, but for the overall food cost chain.”
👷 Expert Labor as Serious Infrastructure
Dedovic Tanja, Senior Regional Specialist on Labor Mobility, IOM MENA (Egypt)
“All the strategy by the Center East and North Africa, demand for knowledgeable labor in Managed Atmosphere Agriculture is rising sharply. As climate pressures intensify, more governments and non-public actors are turning to CEA as piece of their lengthy-term food safety solutions.”
“But technology by myself acquired’t power success. Traders increasingly more ogle knowledgeable labor as vital infrastructure — severe for decreasing likelihood, declaring operational steadiness, and maintaining returns. There is an accelerating knowledgeable labor hole for CEA in the MENA bag and essentially the most resilient initiatives would possibly perchance be of us who tackle team style with the an identical urgency as capital investment.” Learn more about this right here.
🍇 Protected Fruit Vegetation Rob Root in Brazil
Ítalo Moraes Rocha Guedes, DSc, CEA Specialist, Embrapa (Brazil)
“My ogle is in accordance with trends right here in Brazil. Greenhouse horticulture and soilless systems will proceed increasing actual by all regions, and no longer correct for vegetables or ornamentals.”
“We’re already seeing fruit crops like figs, passionfruit, desk grapes, and berries gradually migrate into greenhouses all the strategy by scorching, moist months, particularly in southern and central regions. Rude weather events are turning into too disruptive, and that is pushing growers to adopt stable cultivation. However, high vitality costs will also power demand for alternative vitality sources and climate-easy tech. Brazil’s transition acquired’t be pushed by novelty; this would possibly perchance per chance be pushed by climate necessity.”
🌾 CEA Expands in Emerging Markets with Genetic Precision
Christine R Gould, Founder & CEO, GIGA Futures (Switzerland/Global)
“In 2026, CEA will amplify impulsively actual by rising markets as countries double down on food sovereignty and safety.”
“The most impactful initiatives will whisk some distance beyond leafy greens. We’ll discover managed environments frail to develop desolate tract-adapted crops, functional and medicinal plant life, and high-cost seedlings that increase outdoor manufacturing. That will not be any longer correct about yield; it’s about nutrition, climate resilience, and regional food technique.” “On the an identical time, gene editing and next-gen breeding tools will change into severe enablers, tailoring crops for compact development, faster cycles, and higher nutrient density indoors. And the very best initiatives will integrate into higher water and vitality ecosystems, using round resource solutions and in the neighborhood adapted applied sciences to multiply their cost.”
🏙️ Japan’s Plant Factories Turn out to be Civic Platforms
Dr. Eri Hayashi, Vice President, Japan Plant Factory Association (JPFA) (Japan)
“In 2026, Japan’s plant factories will transfer beyond high productivity and into precision phenotype alter, powered by AI, closed-loop systems, and proper-time files.” “These farms are evolving into hybrid platforms, no longer correct for food manufacturing, but for healthcare, education, biotech, and concrete resilience. They’ll integrate with cities as resource-self sustaining nodes, using digital twins to simulate crop style and form new financial cost. In a whole lot of how, the line between agriculture, biotech, and public infrastructure is starting to blur.”
🔧 U.S. Greenhouse Sector Specializes in Retrofits
Gretchen Schimelpfenig, PE, PE, Executive Director, GLASE, Cornell College (USA)
“The U.S. greenhouse enterprise is heading actual into a steep slowdown in new development. We’re seeing federal protection changes around tariffs and grant funding which earn chilled investment, particularly among smaller avid gamers.” “As a change, 2026 would possibly perchance per chance be the year of retrofits. Growers will focal point on repairing rising outdated infrastructure, phasing in developed lighting fixtures controls, and using sensors and automation tool to lower costs and make stronger efficiency. The smarter operators are auditing their systems now to expose savings that don’t require huge capex.”
🧱 CEA Returns to Its Industrial Roots
Christopher Higgins, President, Hort Americas (USA)
“Managed Atmosphere Agriculture is, in many ways, returning to where it started. When I entered the enterprise 30 years in the past, it modified into dominated by immense-scale greenhouses producing staple crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. I contemplate this would possibly perchance per chance whisk support to that and pause that method for a whereas.” “After a wave of overextension in vertical farming, we’re seeing a return to this consolidated, capital-ambiance pleasant model—fewer avid gamers, but more steadiness. Except there are critical shifts in protection, user behavior, or market incentives, this structure will persist.”
🌱 Vertical Farming Rises Again—With Simplicity and Point of interest
Leo Marcelis, Head of Horticulture and Product Physiology, Wageningen College & Learn (Netherlands)
“Now that the hype has handed and loads vertical farms earn gone bankrupt, the sector is slowly rising all over again—wiser and more focused.”
“Charges are nonetheless moderately high, so essentially the most convenient alternatives lie in high-cost crops where added cost justifies the highest class. It’s severe to retain systems as easy as that you would possibly perchance per chance imagine and assemble certain a determined market exists for what’s being produced. Complexity with out demand is a needless cease. The subsequent section must prioritize financial realism and centered innovation.”
🏭 CEA + Records Providers = The New Infrastructure Stack
Derek Smith, Executive Director, Resource Innovation Institute (USA)
“In 2026, we’ll discover the critical announcement of a immense, high-tech greenhouse cluster in the U.S., colocated with an files middle.” “This isn’t correct about saving vitality. It’s about designing ecosystems where agriculture and digital infrastructure share vitality flows, climate alter, and water systems. Here’s the style forward for climate-easy planning, and it’s how CEA can scale responsibly and profitably.”
➡️ Register for our upcoming webinar on Records Providers + CEA on January 14.
🧪 Smarter Growth, Acknowledging the Past
Dr. Paul Gauthier, CEA Tutorial and Researcher (Australia/Global)
“After 5 years of turbulence—closures, overpromises, and pivots—I judge 2026 would possibly perchance be a more realistic and welcoming year for CEA.” “Yes, we’ll proceed to inquire of restructuring among first-generation vertical farms, but we must acknowledge their legacy. They paved the style for smarter produce, higher nutrient management, and round systems. In Australia, critical property management firm Centuria has taken a controlling location in the business greenhouse sector. In consequence, 2026 is poised to be the year of expansion in Australia, paving the style for more easy investments in the area enterprise.”
“The subsequent wave would possibly perchance be grounded in lessons realized and built for the lengthy-term.”
🏜️ Gulf CEA Ambitions Lose Momentum
Giovanni Angiolini, Regional AgTech Handbook (UAE)
“Whatever the wide bulletins and lengthy-term food safety narratives, 2026 will likely discover a downscaling of CEA investment in the Gulf bag.” “Several immense initiatives are going by severe headwinds: high vitality consumption, unreliable offtake agreements, water management challenges, and an absence of coordinated stakeholder governance. Without stronger alignment between governments, stores, investors, and tech suppliers, capital will remain cautious—and rightly so.”
🇪🇸 Local weather Tension and the Close of the Seasonal Reset
Germán Fernández Hidalgo, Agronomist, Advisor, and Influencer (Almería, Spain)
“In Almería, we’re reaching the bounds of worn greenhouse systems. Thrips parvispinus has change into essentially the most disruptive pest in pepper crops and is now adapting to others like cucumber. Farmers as soon as relied on wintry weather to suppress pests — but parvispinus is now full of life even end to 0°C, hiding deep in plant crowns. The seasonal reset is gone.”
“Local weather alternate is intensifying this force with longer droughts, shorter winters, and more vulgar warmth. Meanwhile, Europe’s tightening regulations are decreasing available tools, even as growers compete with countries working below looser guidelines.”
“In 2026, growers acquired’t adopt CEA on legend of it’s new — they’ll adopt it on legend of it’s vital. Stable climates, tighter biosecurity, and predictable manufacturing would possibly perchance be vital.
🦾 Automation is the Simplest Formulation Ahead
Dr. Jouke Campen, Global Challenge Supervisor, Wageningen College & Learn (Netherlands)
“As more countries peek food safety and climate-resilient manufacturing, CEA will amplify actual by more crop forms. However the bottleneck is labor.”
“Automation and mechanization would possibly perchance be vital. Labor remains to be the finest working sign, and in many regions it’s increasingly more scarce. Whether it’s robotic-assisted harvesting or AI-powered irrigation, 2026 would possibly perchance be a tipping point for mechanized solutions going mainstream.”
Robotics and automation analysis at Wageningen College & Learn
🫀 CEA Embraces Its Function as Effectively being Infrastructure
Nona Yehia, Co-Founder & CEO, Vertical Harvest Farms (USA)
“CEA will pause defending itself as correct an ag-tech vertical and step fully into its role as vital civic infrastructure.”
“We’re already seeing food systems linked to public health outcomes—‘Meals Is Treatment’ programs, team inclusion, measurable nutrition. Farms acquired’t correct be judged on output; they’ll be measured by community resilience. AI will quietly join the dots between biology, vitality, labor, and health outcomes, making the machine auditable and reliable. The CEA operators that prevail in 2026 would possibly perchance be those who act like stewards, no longer startups.”
🧗 Enlightenment, After the Disillusionment
Sam Bertram, CEO & Co-Founder, OnePointOne (USA)
“We’re at final mountain climbing the Slope of Enlightenment. The vertical farming hype cycle brought huge be troubled, but it also brought clarity.”
“2026 would possibly perchance be about demonstrating superior product quality, securing economics reliable for venture financing, and staying laser-taken with geography and crop desire. The gentle pores and skin has been shed. The CEA product is simply too solid—appealing, local, nutritious—to be denied its lengthy-term location in the food machine.”
🧭 CEA Will Be Masterplanned from the Initiate
Henry Gordon-Smith, CEO, Agritecture (New York City)
“In 2026, Managed Atmosphere Agriculture will evolve beyond being handled as a retrofit. This can also furthermore be designed from the starting — a core feature of masterplanned traits in want to an afterthought.”
“Ponder files facilities with integrated farms. Tidy cities with modular greenhouse nodes. Regional food hubs colocated with extinguish-to-vitality plant life, and public institutions. But also: agritourism accommodations with on-bag manufacturing, free zones for ag-tech innovation, and whole new cities built with round food systems embedded from the ground up.”
“At Agritecture, we’re already working with cities, developers, and institutional shoppers to assemble this imaginative and prescient proper — embedding CEA into planning processes both physically and digitally, and redefining how food infrastructure is planned, financed, and scaled in the 21st century.”
🙏 Thank You to Our Contributors
A wide thank you to the 18 world experts who joined me to share their insights for this portion. Their predictions contemplate no longer handiest regional realities, but a shared imaginative and prescient for the style CEA can evolve — into something more resilient, more integrated, and more impactful in 2026.
🔍 What’s Trending All the strategy by the Predictions?
- 🔄 Convergence is right here — Greenhouses and vertical farms are mixing, no longer competing.
- ⚠️ Necessity over novelty — CEA is now a response to climate, no longer correct a tech wager.
- 👷 Labor = infrastructure — Expert workers are severe for steadiness and returns.
- 💡 Smarter spending — Retrofits and integration are changing moonshots.
- 🌍 Local first — Success relies on regional adaptation, no longer copy-paste objects.
- 🏙️ Built into cities — CEA is coming into masterplans, no longer correct warehouses.
- 🧾 Protection friction — Regulations is shaping winners and losers.
- 🫀 Meals as public apt — Effectively being, equity, and sovereignty are rising KPIs.
💬 Which prediction resonated most with you?
🤝 Let’s Work Collectively
Whenever you’re rising a CEA or climate-easy agriculture venture, e book a time with me to discover how Agritecture can increase your targets: 👉 Agenda an Intro Name
发布者：Thomas Chaffre，转转请注明出处：https://robotalks.cn/2026-in-focus-global-experts-predict-the-future-of-cea-2/
