About the Initiative
The Space Agriculture Initiative is dedicated to researching, developing, and promoting technologies that enable plant cultivation in extreme environments — from outer space to the most challenging places on Earth.
Our vision is to contribute to a future where sustainable food production is possible anywhere, supporting both Earth-based agriculture and long-term human presence in space.
Key focus areas:
- Technologies for growing plants in space and on other planets
- Bringing space-driven innovations back to Earth
- Connecting scientists, students, technical partners, and the public
- Science communication and environmental education
Why Space Agriculture?
- Growing global population requires new approaches to food security
- Climate change threatens traditional agricultural methods
- Upcoming space missions (Moon base, Mars exploration) require closed ecological systems
- Innovations for extreme environments inspire solutions for deserts, dry regions, saline soils, and limited resources
- Inspiring the next generation toward science, technology, and sustainability
Main objectives:
- Test and evaluate plant-growth methods under simulated extraterrestrial conditions
- Develop small research modules (“bio-habitats”)
- Support student teams and competitions (ESA/NASA challenges)
- Organize workshops, outreach events, and public demonstrations
- Build collaborations with local and international partners
Planned Activities
2025
- Initiative created: https://dep.fmph.uniba.sk/space-agriculture-2025-bratislava/
- First partners & project definition
- Initial experiments: Plasma treatment application on seeds for extreme conditions
2026
- Starting Seeds for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) program
- Balloon Experiments, Latin American stratosphere facility
- Experiments using lunar/Mars soil simulants
- Controlled-environment plant experiments
2027
- Oasis Beta LEO flight of seeds
- …
Partners
Academic:
- Department of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
- Departments of Genetics and Plan Phyisiology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
- School of Physics and Astronomy and School of Biosciences, University of Kent, United Kingdom
- Faculty of Engineering and Science, University of Greenwich, United Kingdom
- Department of Surface Engineering, Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Centre for Nonequilibrium Processes, Institute of Physics, Belgrade, Serbia
- Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic
- Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Lublin University of Technology, Poland
- CEITEC – Central European Institute of Technology, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
Technological
- Tumbleweed https://www.teamtumbleweed.eu/
Sponsors and funding bodies
News & Updates
Contact
- Contact email: veronika.medvecka(at)uniba.sk
- Contact for new partners or collaborators: veronika.medvecka(at)uniba.sk, n.j.mason(at)kent.ac.uk