Advances in Plant Factories: New Technologies in Indoor Vertical Farming

About

Dr Toyoki Kozai is the former President of Chiba University Japan where he is now an Emeritus Professor. Professor Kozai is also the Honorary President of the Japan Plant Factory Association (JPFA) and a former President of The Agricultural Academy of Japan. As a pioneer of indoor plant factories with artificial lighting (PFALs) also referred to as indoor vertical farming Professor Kozai is widely regarded as one of the founding figures in PFALs and vertical farming. He has edited a number of books on PFALs and is the author of over 300 publications on controlled environment agriculture technologies. Dr Eri Hayashi is the President of the JPFA where she is also the Director of International Relations and Consulting. Eri was Research Project Leader for a national project on Artificial Intelligence- and Phenotyping-based Smart Plant Factories with Artificial Lighting (PFALs). She leads a number of international projects on technology development has given presentations at a number of international conferences and has written widely on the topic of smart plant factories. She was a co-convener of the Symposium of Advances in Vertical Farming at the 31st International Horticultural Congress (IHC 2022). She led the JPFA in organizing the first JPFA International Symposium on Plant Factory (ISPF 2023) at Kashiwanoha Japan. Professor Marcelis is Head of the Horticulture and Product Physiology Group at Wageningen University The Netherlands. The Group is widely regarded as one of the worlds leading university centres of expertise on greenhouse cultivation and vertical farming. Professor Marcelis is an internationally-recognised authority on the use of light in greenhouse and other protected systems to optimise crop production. Francis Baumont de Oliveira is a PhD Researcher in the Institute for Risk and Uncertainty at the University of Liverpool UK. Francis has worked with several vertical farming companies as a farm hand and interviewed dozens of operators gathering experience to build his research from a practical perspective. As a result he has published 7 refereed papers about indoor vertical farming. He has also developed an open-source software to compare business strategies and assess risk for entrepreneurs and investors in the sector.