A new conference for the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) industry will debut on October 25 at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) in Danville.
One goal behind the event, dubbed CEA Summit East, is “highlighting some of the CEA growth that’s happening in Virginia — and particularly in Southern Virginia,” according to organizer Kaylee South.
Sure to be a topic of discussion at the conference: New Jersey-based AeroFarms, which this year opened a 138,670-square-foot, $53 million vertical farm in Pittsylvania County. Located in Cane Creek Centre, a joint industrial park owned by the city of Danville and Pittsylvania County, the AeroFarms facility is expected to create more than 150 jobs and has been promoted as the world’s largest indoor vertical farm of its kind. Roger Buelow, chief technology officer for AeroFarms, is the keynote speaker for CEA Summit East.
The conference will be jointly run by the Controlled Environment Agriculture Innovation Center — a joint Virginia Tech-IALR center located on the IALR campus — and Indoor Ag-Con, a national CEA trade show and conference.
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