If this could be achieved, it would allow plants to grow without sunlight, opening the door to what the paper calls “electro-agriculture”. The paper foresees a utopian future where crops could be grown in all sorts of locations where agriculture is currently impossible—the paper cites “urban centers,

Photosynthesis, the chemical reaction that enables almost all life on Earth, is extremely inefficient at capturing energy -- only around 1% of light energy that a plant absorbs is converted into chemical energy within the plant.

Electro-agriculture would produce food in a controlled, indoor environment, allowing for more precise resource management.

Food insecurity threatens billions, and the solution may lie in a plant cultivation technique far more efficient than nature.