Scientists working in a vertical farm. Scientists working in a vertical farm.

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

Partnerships & 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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Illuminating Pest Management with the Help of the Washington State Wine Commission 

Alexa McDaniel

FFAR Fellow, Washington State University

National Nutrition Month: FFAR’s Bold Solutions Addressing Food Insecurity 

Headshot of CGEWA member.

Dr. Constance Gewa

Senior Program Director

Engineering Beneficial Bacteria to Improve Human Health 

FFAR Fellow, Echo Pan

The Map of Food: Why We Need a World Atlas of What We Eat 

Nancy Brown

Every Day is Indigenous Peoples’ Day 

Dr. Kim Paul, Dr. Kristin Ruppel

Founder of the Piikani Lodge Health InstituteProfessor of Native American Studies in the College of Letters and Science and director of MSU’s Native Land Project

PIP is Pioneering Indoor Agriculture Collaborations 

Portrait of John Reich.

John Reich, Ph.D.

Scientific Program Director Bolstering Healthy Food Systems

Feedback Loops & Food Access 

Portrait of Gwen Donley.

Gwendolyn Donley

2019-2022 FFAR Fellow

News

The latest news and updates from FFAR.

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Funding Opportunity Drives Innovation & Commercialization in Sustainable Packaging for Specialty Crop Exports 

FFAR Grant to Improve Sorghum & Strengthen Nutritional Security 

Advancing Circular Bioeconomy with Biomass Feedstocks 

Student Teams Combat Climate Change 

FFAR & NWO Launch Greenhouses in Transition & Welcome Proposals 

FFAR Accepting Applications for Harvest for Health Breakthrough Crop Challenge 

FFAR Grant Unites Urban Agriculture Operations to Increase Food Security 

Researchers Investigate the Promise of Food Procurement 

Pairing Regenerative Farming and Solar Energy Production to Improve Urban Resilience 

FFAR Announces Harvest for Health Prize Criteria 

FFAR Grant Develops Premium Strawberry Flavors for Indoor Growing Environments 

FFAR Program Develops Underutilized Crops 

FFAR & Schmidt Futures Release Report to Advance a Circular U.S. Bioeconomy 

Grant Aims to Reduce Food Waste 

FFAR, NPB Seek to Improve Air Quality on Pig Farms 

FFAR & WUR Launch Nature-Based Future Challenge 

FFAR Grant Tackles Peanut Allergy 

FFAR Grant Advances Equitable Food Access 

FFAR Grant Addresses Food Waste Reduction Challenges 

FFAR-Funded Periodic Table of Food Initiative to Standardize Food Analysis 

Breakthroughs

Tools, technologies and strategies from the research we fund.

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Loyalty Shopper Card Intervention Creates Behavior Change 

Breakthrough for Individually-targeted incentives, diet quality and health outcomes among adults

Increased Fiber, Same Great Taste 

Breakthrough for Increasing Dietary Fiber in Wheat Crop

Connecting Growers & Markets 

Breakthrough for FFAR Grant Develops Tools to Predict Consumer Demand, Reduce Food Waste