Professional Science Master - Applied Biosciences - Controlled Environmental Agriculture

University of Arizona

The Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) a sub-plan of the Applied Biosciences GIDP is designed to prepare students who wish to possess a graduate-level education that integrates science and engineering-based approach to provide specific controlled environments for plant productivity while optimizing resources including water, energy, space, capital and labor, and more specifically incorporate knowledge in management and business. Graduates of this track will be prepared for careers in the controlled environment agriculture industry, academia, and government.

The CEA is an agricultural production practice for year-round continuous production of nutritionally high-quality foods, with crop yields that can exceed field production by as much as 10-fold, and with the potentials to utilize local renewable energy resources, and optimize water, energy, space, capital, and labor resource use efficiency well above field traditional capabilities. This production technology, can employ crop production systems, provide harvest much less dependent on season, and can generate higher crop yields, quality, safety, nutritional value, with consistency and predictability while utilizing less land in an environmentally friendly way.