Russia plans to grow tomatoes and wheat on a future lunar base, according to Margarita Levinskikh, academic secretary of the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) at the Russian Academy of Sciences, as reported by the Russian state news agency TASS.
Levinskikh, a doctor of biological sciences, said tomatoes are one of four crops currently planned for cultivation on space facilities such as a lunar base. The other three are wheat, sweet peppers and green leafy crops, she said.
She added that growing agricultural plants in space conditions requires the development of specially suited varieties, since ordinary crop strains are not built to withstand the environment of a space station or a lunar outpost.
Russia's lunar ambitions
The Institute of Biomedical Problems is a leading Russian research body focused on the medical and biological challenges of spaceflight, including how humans and plants can survive long stays away from Earth. Its work has long fed into plans for future crewed missions and permanent outposts beyond low Earth orbit.
Lev Zeleny, head of Russia's lunar program and scientific director of the Space Research Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, has previously said that private American companies have already begun the process of developing the Moon. He has also said the Moon can be viewed, from a scientific and practical standpoint, as Earth's seventh continent.
Renewed interest in lunar exploration
The comments come amid renewed global attention on the Moon. The United States sent astronauts there for the first time in fifty years earlier in 2026, with NASA saying it aims to maintain a permanent presence on the Earth's satellite. Astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft also set a new record for distance traveled into space during that mission before returning to Earth.
No timeline was given for when Russia's proposed lunar base, or the crop-growing experiments planned for it, might become operational.
