CEA Summit East 2026 Recap

Last week, I had the pleasure traveling to Danville, Virginia to volunteer with the team running the CEA Summit East. It was a great event to be a part of and I want to recap it, but first, what is the CEA Summit East? What is CEA?

CEA Summit East 2022 - Indoor Ag-Con

CEA

CEA stands for Controlled Environment Agriculture. This refers to any type of agricultural situation where some conditions can be controlled by the farmer. They can be as low tech as high tunnels or as high tech as high tech as fully automatic indoor set ups, which will also vary with levels of control.

High Tunnel: Bootstrap Farmer
 Keck Greenhouse: Virginia Tech
Hydroponics: Midwest Storage Solutions


CEA Summit East

The CEA Summit East is an annual conference and networking event. It is hosted by the Controlled Environment Agriculture Innovation Center, a joint project between the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research  Many professionals in the agriculture and research world attended to learn, share, connect, and grow their business. The program featured key speakers, various breakout sessions, networking receptions, and a graduate student poster competition. First place for the competition was a tie between research focused on integrating AI into CEA system automation and diversifying CEA crops. Due to my area of interests, my personal favorite posters were on shelf life of ornamental plants and ornamental flower grown in hydroponics. 


My Experience

The CEA Summit East was the first conference I have attended. I was very nervous leading up to it, but managed to calm down as I settled into the environment. As previously stated, I attended the conference as a volunteer. My role primary role was as a moderator for the discussion on how to start a CEA operation. Being a moderator for this group was an excellent way to fully take in the information from the panel and connect with the speakers. I learned a fair bit about the cost and time that goes in to CEA setups, the importance of keeping them clean, and the various pests that can arrive if not maintained. While targeted towards agricultural growers and researchers, I noticed a lack of sustainability focused information, so I think that would be a great addition to the event in the future.

In addition to connecting with the speakers, I was also able to connect with some other grad students, which was huge for me! As an online/asynchronous student, chances to connect with peers are few and far between. It was great to chat with other students, learn from them, and swap stories. Talking together was such a huge motivation boost and my highlight from the event.


Danville

I could not arrive in a new town with out exploring it a bit! While in Danville, I hit up seemingly singular movie theater to watch Coyote Vs Acme with lawyer father (he had a good time pointing out inaccuracies). Afterwards, we visited the downtown area and got close to the Dan River. They area was set up nicely with a small park and tables scattered around. For dinner, we went to the Golden Leaf Bistro. The food was a bit pricy, but extremely good.

Dan River: Samantha Wilson

Conclusion

I had a great time attending the CEA Conference and would love to participate again next year. If you are interested as well, visit HERE for more information!

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