Precision Indoor Plants

Precision Indoor Plants (PIP), a public-private partnership, helps food producers grow flavorful, nutritious food indoors. The consortium’s audacious research increases our ability to produce quality crops that are valuable and desired by consumers.

Generating Food Systems Solutions
Precision Indoor Plants (PIP), a public-private partnership, helps food producers grow flavorful, nutritious food indoors. The consortium’s audacious research increases our ability to produce quality crops that are valuable and desired by consumers.

Generating Food Systems Solutions

Program Contact

John Reich
jreich@foundationfar.org

Development Contact

Carmen Ruiz
cruiz@foundationfar.org

PIP’s Vision

A world where nutritious food is sustainably grown irrespective of geography or climate

PIP is exploring how to adapt plants to indoor environments to grow flavorful, nutritious and resource-efficient crops in a variety of environments.

Designing Crops for Indoor Agriculture

The PIP consortium generates the knowledge and resources to accelerate the development of crops that thrive in controlled environment agriculture.

We are advancing crop science by focusing on problems largely underfunded or overlooked, such as nutrition and taste. By controlling most factors during crop development, we explore how the combination of environmental inputs and genetic control gives rise to desired traits. We are using a variety of pioneering methods including advancements in artificial intelligence, phenomics and computational modeling to achieve PIP’s vision.

Additionally, this research expands the potential for growing crops in any environment. Increasing nutrient content and yields, growing crops with less energy and understanding how crops perform best in controlled environment agriculture can improve farming in a wide variety of agricultural environments, including space.

Awarded Grants for the Precision Indoor Plants

FFAR Grant Develops Premium Strawberry Flavors for Indoor Growing Environments

Year Awarded  2023

FFAR award amount   $1,800,000

Total award amount   $1,800,000

Location   Columbus, OH

Matching Funders   AeroFarms, BASF, Benson Hill, Fluence by OSRAM, GreenVenus and Priva

Grantee Institution   The Ohio State University

PIP Indoor Tomato Farming Project

Year Awarded  2022

Total award amount   $2,112,454

Location   Gainesville, FL

Matching Funders   AeroFarms, BASF, Fluence by OSRAM, GreenVenus, Priva

Grantee Institution   University of Florida

SKY HIGH Consortium Agreement

Year Awarded  2021

FFAR award amount   $1,061,576

Total award amount   $6,630,342

Location   Wageningen, The Netherlands

Matching Funders   Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, Bayer, Bosman Van Zaal, Certhon, Dutch Research Council, Fresh Forward, Grodan, GrowX, Own Greens, Signify, Solynta, Unilever, Van Bergen Kolpa Architects

Grantee Institution   Wageningen University

The Latest

Insights

Our Insights highlight unique perspectives from across the food and agriculture community.

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PIP is Pioneering Indoor Agriculture Collaborations

John Reich, Ph.D.

Scientific Program Director Bolstering Healthy Food Systems

News

The latest news and updates from FFAR.

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FFAR Grant Develops Premium Strawberry Flavors for Indoor Growing Environments

PIP Consortium Promotes Indoor Tomato Farming

FFAR Pioneers Vertical Farming to Grow Food in Cities, Other Nontraditional Spaces

Precision Indoor Plants (PIP) Consortium to Revolutionize Agriculture