Understanding how to build and maintainsustainable urban systems is one of the grand challenges of the 21ST century

The University of Florida received a $924,960 Project Grant awarded September 30, 2025, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Urban, Indoor, and Other Emerging Agricultural Production Research, Education, and Extension Initiative (CFDA 10.333). The three-year project (completion September 29, 2028) will develop a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to identify optimal sites for scaling urban agriculture (UA) in the Greater Miami region. The deliverables include: (1) remote sensing technology and drone-based assessments to screen candidate sites across the metropolitan area; (2) AI-driven algorithms, including fingerprint networked reinforcement learning, to evaluate interactions among food-energy-water-waste sectors and optimize UA expansion; and (3) a web-based decision support tool incorporating biophysical, infrastructural, social, and economic datasets to guide urban and regional planners and policymakers. The project focuses on three emerging indoor UA systems with commercial potential: vacant lot vertical farms, rooftop greenhouses, and floating farms.

The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees serves as a sub-awardee (award dated February 20, 2026) responsible for executing Tasks 1 and 2 of the research initiative. Deliverables will be integrated into undergraduate and graduate curriculum development and incorporated into existing statewide extension programs to promote sustainable urban agriculture development. The framework is designed for broad applicability to other U.S. cities pursuing UA development, advancing urban sustainability objectives across social, economic, and environmental dimensions.

Urban agriculture (UA) - producing food in (PERI)urban areas - has been proposed as a promising urban sustainability solution. Yet current sustainability benefits of UA are constrained due to small-scale implementation, even though many cities in the U.S. Are experiencing increasing community interests, grassroot and policy support for UA development. Hence, IT is crucial to scale up (boosts in number, capacity, infrastructure) current UA production systems to fully realize its implications on social, economic, and environmental sustainability. To achieve this goal, improved knowledge, approach, and system for siting new UA are required in ways that can comprehensively account for biophysical, infrastructural, social, and economic factors. In this integrated research-extension project, we aim to (1) develop a multi-criteria decision analysis framework to identify potential sites for scaling up UA; and (2) design artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to determine optimal locations for UA network expansion for incorporating into a web-based decision support tool. We will focus on three emerging, indoor UAS with substantial potentials for mass and commercialized production: vacant lot vertical farms, rooftop greenhouses, and floating farms, by using greater miami region as a test bed. Our frameworkcan be broadly applicable to other cities experiencing interests in UA development. Our findings will contribute to undergraduate and graduate curriculum development, and be incorporated into existing statewide extension programs to guide optimized UA development to achieve urban sustainability.