Mapping research trends and gaps in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA): a scoping review

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is a potential strategy in sustainable food system transitions. This study analyzed 587 peer-reviewed articles published between 2008 and 2023 to identify major research themes, knowledge gaps, and key societal and environmental challenges researchers associate with CEA development. We found that scholars frame CEA as a strategy to solve potential food system issues caused by population growth, urbanization, climate change, and the increasing demand for local food. Current CEA research heavily concentrates on operational optimization and resource management, particularly light optimization and energy efficiency. Studies on plant breeding and waste management are almost non-existent, and socioeconomic research is scarce and limited to conceptual analysis. Our results highlight the need for more comprehensive, system-level approach to CEA research and a balanced distribution of efforts, with greater attention to critical yet understudied areas. Future research could focus on empirically assessing CEA performance in practice and examining how governance, policy, and institutional factors shape its outcomes. Achieving system sustainability for CEA will require integrating knowledge across technological, social, cultural, economic, and political domains rather than relying solely on hardware and software innovation. Our findings also call attention to the need to broaden the scope of sustainability research in CEA systems to include implications for livelihoods, communities, and ecosystems. Finally, CEA research is predominantly driven by the Global North, and without greater inclusion of Global South perspectives, CEA risks becoming a technology that widens rather than bridges global disparities in food security and agricultural innovation.