By Jody Norman, Urban Extension Specialist

Cities across the country are being asked to do more with less—less land, less water, less margin for error. At the same time, expectations are growing: improve food access, strengthen climate resilience, support public health, and build more connected communities.

Urban agriculture has long been part of this conversation. But in dense urban environments, it runs up against a persistent constraint: space. There simply isn’t enough available land to scale food production in ways that meet these overlapping challenges. Research examining urban agriculture policy across the 40 largest U.S. cities highlights how access to land remains a persistent barrier, with relatively few cities offering multiple mechanisms for secure or long-term land access for growers.[i] In this context, buildings themselves begin to look less like barriers and more like opportunities.

What if we started looking at buildings themselves—not just as places that consume resources, but as places that could help produce them?

That question sits at the heart of Building-Integrated Agriculture (BIA).

Seeing Buildings Differently

At its simplest, BIA is the intentional integration of food production into buildings and built systems.

This can take many forms:

• Rooftop farms that turn underutilized space into productive landscapes
• Green facades that support plant growth while improving building performance
• Indoor growing systems that use controlled environments to produce food year-round
• Closed-loop approaches where building outputs—heat, water, CO₂—are reused to support plant growth

Individually, none of these ideas are entirely new. What is emerging is the recognition that, together, they point toward something larger: a shift in how we think about the relationship between food systems and the built environment.

Why BIA Matters Now

BIA is gaining attention not because it is a single solution, but because it sits at the intersection of multiple, pressing challenges.

For cities, it offers new ways to use existing infrastructure to support resilience and resource efficiency.

For urban agriculture, it opens pathways to scale production beyond the limits of available land.

For workforce development, it signals the need for new hybrid skill sets that cross agriculture, architecture, engineering, construction, and operations.

For public health and environmental quality, it creates opportunities to connect food access, indoor environments, and green infrastructure in more integrated ways.

And for Extension, it raises an important question: what role can we play in helping these pieces come together?

A Convergence Space, Not a Single Field

One of the most important things to understand about BIA is that it is not a standalone discipline.

It is a convergence space—bringing together:

• Agriculture
• Architecture and engineering
• Construction and building operations
• Policy and planning
• Community development

Each of these sectors already has its own priorities, language, and ways of working. BIA doesn’t replace them—it requires them to connect.

That creates both opportunity and tension. Without coordination, efforts remain fragmented. With intentional collaboration, new possibilities begin to emerge.

This is where Extension has a unique and potentially powerful role to play.

Extension has long operated at the intersection of research and practice—connecting research and real-world needs, building relationships, and supporting communities in navigating complex challenges.

In the context of BIA, that role can expand to include:

• Convening partners across sectors who may not typically work together
• Connecting research insights with practical, place-based applications
• Supporting workforce development efforts that reflect emerging hybrid roles
• Helping communities and institutions explore what BIA could look like in their own contexts

Rather than leading from a single discipline, Extension can help create the conditions for collaboration across many.

Across the country, Extension programs are already exploring pieces of this emerging landscape—from urban agriculture and controlled environment agriculture to community food systems, workforce development, and climate resilience. Institutions within the NUREC network and beyond—including universities in states such as , and others—are contributing research, pilot projects, and community partnerships that help illuminate how BIA-related ideas may take shape in practice.

Throughout this blog series, we will highlight examples of Extension programs, researchers, and practitioners who are advancing this work in different ways. By sharing these efforts, we hope to surface lessons, spark connections, and broaden the conversation around what Extension’s role in this evolving ecosystem could become.

Getting Involved: Starting Points

For those working in Extension, BIA may feel new—or even outside traditional program areas. But there are already entry points.

Start by noticing where food systems, buildings, and community needs intersect in your region.

Look for existing partners in areas such as planning, design, construction, public health, and local government. Many of these groups are already working on pieces of this landscape, even if they are not yet connected.

Ask where there are gaps—whether in knowledge, coordination, or workforce capacity—that Extension could help address.

And perhaps most importantly, begin conversations. Much of this work is still emerging, and shared understanding is still being built. In many cases, the first step is simply bringing the right people into the same room and asking better questions together.

Looking Ahead

Building-Integrated Agriculture is still taking shape. There are open questions about feasibility, economics, policy, and implementation. There are also clear signals that interest is growing across sectors.

This blog series is an invitation to explore that space.

In the posts that follow, we’ll explore a range of emerging directions, including:

• How BIA connects to workforce development and evolving career pathways
• Where policy and design are enabling—or constraining—innovation
• How Extension can act as a connector in this evolving ecosystem
• Which voices and roles are still missing from the conversation
• And how these threads connect to broader systems work across regions and institutions

Along the way, we will highlight examples of Extension programs, researchers, and practitioners who are already advancing this work in different contexts.

BIA is not just about growing food in new places. It is about rethinking how our systems connect—and what becomes possible when they do.

[i] Santo, R. E., Lupolt, S. N., Uhde, K. M., Bennaton, R. C., & Nachman, K. E. (2024). From access toward sovereignty: A scoping review of municipal land access policies for urban agriculture in the United States. Elementa (Washington, D.C.), 12(1), Article 00089. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2023.00089