Virginia Economic Review

This issue of Virginia Economic Review takes a deep dive into the controlled environment agriculture industry’s past, present, and future, while highlighting traditional agricultural operations in Virginia.

When The Turman Group began focusing on exporting nearly 20 years ago, company executives had goals and anxieties that are likely familiar to businesses that have taken similar steps.

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) describes a variety of systems that use technology to provide optimal growing conditions for crops, from simple hoop houses and traditional greenhouses to fully indoor vertical farms.

In 2001, when cousins Ryan and Travis Croxton took over their family’s 100-year-old oyster bed leases on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula, the Commonwealth’s oyster industry was on life support.

Consider the strawberry. Its skin, slightly glossy in a deep crimson hue, warmed by gentle light. A burst of sweet juice when first pierced by the teeth, giving way to tart flavors and a subtly gritty texture from dozens of tiny seeds.

Labor shortages have long been a challenge in agricultural operations, spurring innovative new ways of operating. Today’s farms rely as much on GPS-guided technology and artificial intelligence-driven automation as they do on manual labor.

Any discussion about Virginia peanuts needs to start with a clarification between Virginia peanuts and Virginia Peanuts. The lowercase former refers to peanuts grown in the Commonwealth; the capitalized latter is one of four peanut cultivars grown in the United States.

Agriculture is Virginia's oldest, largest private industry.

Just outside the city of Danville, Virginia, sits a farm unlike any of its neighbors. Tucked into the tree line, it stands 50 feet high, sleek, and solid white, standing out from the long, thin rows of tilled fields that surround it.

Peter Beck is CEO, CTO, and founder of Rocket Lab, a private space company with commercial launch sites in New Zealand and Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

The age of autonomous vehicles has arrived. Autonomous shuttles, cars, farm equipment, mining equipment and trucks, on-highway trucks, and construction equipment will be here soon or are already commercially available.

Denbigh High School's Aviation Academy is a Top-Flight Launch Pad for Rising Talent Attitude Equals Altitude That’s the philosophy at Denbigh High School’s Aviation Academy in Newport News in Hampton Roads, a nationally recognized STEM site designed to put no limits on how high students can soar.

With Wing, Google Pioneers Drone Delivery in Virginia On a gravel lot just off of Welcome Street in Christiansburg in Montgomery County, an array of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) recharging pads is flanked by office trailers and shipping containers.

Dale Nash is CEO and executive director of Virginia Space, the owner and operator of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), at Wallops Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

On a bright, early morning in the Mojave Desert in November 2021, test pilot Nils Larson will climb into a 97-foot-long airplane resembling something out of “Star Wars.” The nose, from tip to the single-seat cockpit, will be as long as the rest of the aircraft.

On a chilly, cloud-streaked day in February, a 133-foot-tall rocket sat on a launchpad, venting steam from its liquid oxygen tanks. With the Atlantic Ocean tumbling against a beach just a stone's throw away, a flight director counted down to liftoff.

Formula 1 race cars, wind turbines, NASA rockets, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) optimize performance based on how air flows around their surfaces at various speeds, altitudes, and temperatures.

When Andy Schaudt addresses an audience, he typically asks how many of them have ever ridden in an automated vehicle. At best, a smattering of hands reach skyward. He then recasts the question: How many have ever used cruise control in their cars?