Controlled-Environment Agriculture and Vertical Farming for Horticultural Crops: Lighting, Automation, and Resource-Use Efficiency

Abstract

Controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) and vertical farming represent transformative approaches to horticulture that decouple crop production from the vagaries of outdoor climate, land availability, and seasonal constraints. These systems integrate precise manipulation of light, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, and nutrient delivery to optimise plant growth and quality. This review aims to support researchers, industry practitioners, and policymakers in identifying the most promising pathways for advancing CEA and vertical farming as viable components of sustainable urban food systems. This review focuses on peer-reviewed research and authoritative technical reports published primarily since 2005, addressing controlled-environment agriculture and vertical farming for horticultural crops.  LED technology has emerged as the dominant radiation source, offering tunable spectral outputs, reduced heat load, and substantially lower energy consumption than legacy sources such as high-pressure sodium and fluorescent lamps. Automation, encompassing IoT-enabled sensor networks, robotics, and artificial intelligence, is increasingly deployed to manage climate and crop monitoring, reduce labour costs, and enhance predictive capacity. Resource-use efficiency—including water, nutrients, energy, and land—has been demonstrated to be significantly superior to conventional field production in many crop scenarios, most notably for short-cycle leafy vegetables and herbs. Nevertheless, high capital investment, energy demands for artificial lighting, and challenges in scalability remain significant barriers to mainstream adoption. This review critically evaluates the state of knowledge across these domains, addresses crop performance, economic dimensions, and environmental sustainability, and highlights avenues for future research and commercialisation, emphasising the urgent need for integrated systems approaches and policy support to make CEA viable at scale.