UW’s Guadagno to Lead $2.08M NSF Grant for Controlled Environment Agriculture Research

The University of Wyoming has been awarded a $2.08 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of a larger $6 million interjurisdictional project aimed at exploring the potential of indoor farming practices to address climate resilience challenges.

The project, titled "Harnessing Controlled Environment Agriculture to Secure Sustainability and Economic Growth," is a collaboration among the University of New Mexico (UNM), UW, the University of South Dakota, New Mexico State University and Santa Fe Community College. UW will lead the project's core science components, which examine how plants and microbes interact in hydroponic systems and affect crop yield in different environmental settings. Carmela Rosaria Guadagno, director of the UW Plant Growth and Phenotyping Facility in the Science Institute and associate director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Center, will lead UW's effort as primary investigator. UNM will oversee the socioeconomic aspects of the project, assessing the drivers and impacts of CEA on tribal communities.

The NSF-funded project will investigate scientific foundational aspects of indoor farming, one of the many agricultural practices that follow under CEA, and its impacts on socioeconomics, crop production and nutrition. The project also involves development of training programs to provide communities with climate-smart CEA technologies and expertise.

The Wyoming Innovation Partnership (WIP) effort for CEA that Guadagno is leading for UW deeply integrates with the core and outreach of this project. By providing funding for advanced instrumentation and workforce development, WIP has directly enabled UW to lead in CEA research. These investments have not only strengthened UW's capabilities, but they also have started to develop a skilled workforce essential for advancing the CEA industry, Guadagno says. The partnership between WIP and the NSF grant highlights Wyoming's proactive approach to fostering innovation and economic sustainability in response to climate challenges.

"CEA represents a strong reality for the state of Wyoming, and it can be strategically leveraged to foster food safety and build economic sustainability within the region," Guadagno says. "By partnering with states facing similar challenges, we aim to empower communities to thrive under future climates while driving innovation in CEA technologies."

The project addresses the increasing frequency of extreme environmental disasters and their impact on farming and food security, particularly in disadvantaged communities. UW will collaborate closely with tribal communities, including those on Wyoming's Wind River Indian Reservation, to develop targeted education and outreach activities in CEA. Planned efforts will include food and agricultural workshops for Native American high school students and educational experiences through UW's Native American Summer Institute.

"Tribes have a cultural history of farming with innovative methods in drought-prone environments, but as climate becomes more unpredictable, productivity is endangered, exacerbating food insecurity," Guadagno adds. "With this grant, UW will strengthen current partnerships with the Wind River Indian Reservation and fund further collaboration with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho communities."

The partnership with Santa Fe Community College seeks to establish pathways for students to transition from a two-year program in CEA to a related STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) bachelor's program at a university. Students will play a critical role in the research across the involved institutions; Guadagno auspicates to engage with community colleges in Wyoming, thereby strengthening the current WIP program for CEA that she leads for UW.

"This grant perfectly aligns with UW's ongoing efforts in CEA. These synergistic initiatives will significantly benefit Wyoming and all EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) jurisdictions involved, cultivating a skilled workforce for the industry and providing a strategic road map for the broad adoption of CEA technologies at the community level," Guadagno says.

The overarching goal of the project is to determine best practices for secure CEA food production empirically and quantify the socioeconomic impacts of CEA on tribal communities, Guadagno adds. The project is geared to leverage diverse expertise from researchers in plant physiology, plant-microbe interactions, environmental and natural resource economics, engineering, sustainability science and traditional ecological knowledge from tribal community members.

Professor Cynthia Weinig, a co-investigator from UW's Department of Botany, highlights the significance of microbial research in CEA settings.

"CEA provides many advantages in food production over conventional field agriculture, such as improved efficiency in water use and reduced use of chemical inputs," she says. "Our project investigates the distribution and function of microbes in improving plant productivity in CEA settings, offering a potential avenue to increase yields and crop quality significantly."

Associate Professor Jill Keith, a co-investigator from UW's Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, emphasizes the importance of engaging stakeholders.

"Innovative efforts to address food and nutrition security in rural communities are vital," Keith says. "Engaging stakeholders, especially tribal community members with traditional ecological knowledge, to guide work around climate resilience is key to this project."

The project is funded by the NSF EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement-Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (RII-FEC) program, which aims to build interjurisdictional collaborative teams of EPSCoR investigators in focus areas consistent with the NSF strategic plan.

For more information, email Guadagno at [email protected].