About Us
Industrial Ecosystems Partners is addressing the need for a resilient and sustainable food system through Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). By integrating leading edge technologies, BIEP aims to lower capital costs while advancing resilient and sustainable systems that are powered by the triad of energy sources; Biomass, Solar & Wind. BIEP is a consultant, a provider of hardware and turnkey developer.
History of CEA
While growing plants indoors or in greenhouses has been around for a long time, their use to commercially produce food has been a relative recent development. Research has been largely restricted to horticultural knowledge and this has resulted in a good understanding of how plants relate to their environment. There have been significant advancements in LED lighting, equipment related to growth systems or water and nutrient delivery. Efforts to efficiently control temperature, humidity and CO2 content have been another matter, however. In an effort to better control pests and pathogens, green-houses are also seeking methods to become totally enclosed like vertical growing systems.
Vision
Climate change and extreme weather is becoming more apparent and is threatening our food system. Increasing temperature and elevated CO2 levels are affecting the photosynthesis of our food crops resulting in lower protein content and lower levels of nutrition. Adaptive agriculture systems will be necessary to address this issue and provide a sustainable and resilient food system. CEA will be a significant part of an adaptive food system if capital costs and energy needs can be reduced and the system brought into a truly circular ecosystem for the farmer. BIEP’s vision is to provide advanced environmental systems to meet this need through our products and engineering services.
Mission
BIEP’s mission is to work with farmers to provide locally grown food and provide good, year round jobs at a living wage. Our approach is to develop an integrated hardware system specifically designed to the particular environmental needs of plants using inputs available to a variety of farmers. Present systems are dependent on the electric grid or fossil fuel energy. They are seen as independent from existing farm economies and ecosystems. BIEP’s proprietary systems recycle wastes back into a hybrid ecosystem for a truly circular industrial/nature ecosystem. Our target triad of energy sources are Biomass, Solar & Wind, all of which may be available to small peri-urban farms near urban centers.