Jakarta Globe, Kalinga
Seneviratne, December 09, 2012
 |
| Workers harvesting vegetables from one of Sky Green’s vertical towers. (IPS Photo/Kalinga Seneviratne) |
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Singapore. With a population of five million crammed on a landmass of just 715 square kilometers, the tiny republic of Singapore has been forced to expand upwards, building high-rise residential complexes to house the country’s many inhabitants.
Now,
Singapore is applying the vertical model to urban agriculture, experimenting
with rooftop gardens and vertical farms in order to feed its many residents.
Currently
only seven percent of Singapore’s food is grown locally. The country imports
most of its fresh vegetables and fruits daily from neighboring countries such
as Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, as well as from more distant trading
partners like Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Chile.
An influx
of immigrants has resulted in a rapid crowding of Singapore’s skyline, as more
and more towering apartment buildings shoot up. And meanwhile, what little land
was available for farming is disappearing fast.
The
solution to the problem came in the form of a public-private partnership, with
the launch of what has been hailed as the “world’s first low carbon,
water-driven rotating vertical farm” for growing tropical vegetables in an
urban environment.
The result
of a collaborative agreement between the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of
Singapore (AVA) and a local firm, Sky Green, this venture aims to popularize
urban farming techniques that are also environmentally friendly.
With a
robust economy that boasts a gross domestic product of 239.7 billion dollars,
Singapore has plenty of money. “But money [is] worthless without food,”
according to Sky Green Director Jack Ng.
“That’s why
I wanted to use my engineering skills to help Singapore farmers to produce more
food,” Ng told IPS.
An engineer
by training, Ng created the vertical farming system, which he nicknamed “A
Go-Grow.” It consists of a series of aluminum towers, some of them up to nine
meters high, each containing 38 tiers equipped with troughs for the vegetables.
In keeping
with Sky Green’s focus on environmental sustainability, the water used to power
the rotating towers is recycled within the system and eventually used to water
the vegetables. Each tower consumes only 60 watts of power daily — about the
same amount as a single light bulb.
Ng knew
that if the system was too expensive or complicated, urban farmers would not be
able to survive. And given that he designed the project with retirees and other
housebound farmers in mind, he tried to create a situation in which “the plant
comes to you, rather than you going to the plant.”
The
multi-layered vegetable tower rotates very slowly, taking some eight hours to
complete a full circle. As the plant travels to the top it absorbs ample
sunlight and when it comes back down it is watered from a tray that is fed by
the hydraulic system that drives the rotation of the tower.
This closed
cycle system is easy to maintain and doesn’t release any exhaust.
Ng says
that such towers, if set up on roofs of the many multi-story residential blocs
that house most of Singapore’s population, could provide livelihoods for
retirees and housewives, who would only need to spend a few hours up on the
roof to attend to the system.
Sky Green
towers currently produce three vegetables popular with locals: nai bai, xiao
bai cai and Chinese cabbage, which can be harvested every 28 days.
They
already supply NTUC FairPrice, Singapore’s largest grocery retailer that has a
network of over 230 outlets and supermarkets. The urban-grown vegetables cost
roughly 20 cents more per kilogram than the imported varieties.
The group’s
purchasing manager, Tng Ah Yiam, recently told a Straits Times reporter that
these ‘sky farms’ are now able to offer their customers quality, locally-grown
vegetables “that are fresher because they travel a shorter distance from farm
to shelf”.
Sky Green
plans to supply two tons a day to NTUC by the middle of next year when they
expand their farm towers.
Coordinated
efforts
The Sky
Green project feeds into a trend that has been underway in Singapore for
several decades.
Since the
urban expansion of the 1990s Singapore has attempted to respond to the scarcity
of land available for traditional cultivation by promoting rooftop vegetable
gardens.
A number of
local institutions developed hydroponic and aeroponic cultivation systems but
none ever took off. “There was always concern over whether or not the rooftops
could take the weight of these structures,” Shih Yong Goh, former head of
public affairs at AVA, told IPS.
Experts
like Lee Sing Kong, director of the National Institute of Education and a
long-time advocate of the use of ‘sky farms’, believe there is an urgent need
for Singapore to become less dependent on food imports.
Given the
increasing frequency of extreme weather events, including “natural disasters
such as flooding, which could impact food production, it may be necessary for
Singapore to look at producing some of its own vegetables from the food
security point of view,” he told IPS.
Kong said
that he is currently involved in the development of “vegetable factories,”
whole buildings designed to grow fresh produce.
“We have
[begun] developing a 6-tiered aeroponic system to grow vegetables with the help
of LED lights,” he said, adding, “this is in the experimental stage. If the
model proves to be successful, then the multi-tiered system can be installed
within enclosed buildings for producing vegetables. This will certainly enhance
the opportunities for urban agriculture.”
Since 2005,
the government has shed some of its reservations about rooftop production. The
National Parks Board recently converted the rooftop of a multi-story
residential building in the densely populated Upper Serangoon Road into an
educational farm to promote urban agriculture among school children.
Meanwhile,
Sky Green has signed an MOU with Singapore’s Temasek Polytechnic technical
college. Dr. Lee Chee Wee, director of the School of Applied Science, believes
that partnering with Sky Green will expose his students to how technology is
used in vegetable farming and make “modern farming so much more attractive as a
career choice for our graduates.”
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