Urban Farming in Singapore

The land-scarce city-state of Singapore -a small island nation lacking natural resources and a hinterland to support one of the most densely populated cities on earth- has always been required to innovate in order to survive. Inventive solutions to urban issues have been the result- Singapore is renowned for its ingenious answers to the problems of water supply & land use. Now the “City in a Garden” is revolutionising urban agriculture with avant-garde solutions for food production in a dense urban environment.

Enter Sky Greens, an innovative urban farm located in Lim Chu Kang, northern Singapore, which I recently had the opportunity to visit. The urban farmers here have taken to the sky in an attempt to provide a sustainable way to feed Singapore’s 5+ million residents, as currently over 90% of Singapore’s food is imported from overseas.

At Sky Greens, they employ an innovative vertical rotating rack system for growing leafy vegetables, which turns out more than 10 times the amount of produce as does traditional in-ground farming. Each 9 meter (30 foot) high tower is connected to a low-power hydraulic motor, which slowly rotates the crops over the course of the day, ensuring that each plant receives sufficient light. As each row of veggies reaches the bottom of the rotation, it dips into a reservoir (containing rainwater harvested from the site), meaning manpower is not required to water the crops.

Operation is as simple as sowing seedlings into the towers, and harvesting/packaging them when they reach full size. A skeleton crew of retirees and passionate farmers maintain the entire 40,000 sqm farm.

This innovative approach to urban agriculture takes advantage of supportive government initiatives to reduce food import dependance, and strong demand which has seen local produce snapped up quickly at supermarkets across the island, customers happy to buy locally grown (and extremely fresh) vegetables.

And believe it or not, Sky Greens isn’t the only company revolutionising food supply ecosystem in Singapore. Edible Garden City is growing fresh herbs for some of the city-state’s many restaurants, while Comcrop is growing vegetables & herbs on the rooftop of *scape, an urban shopping centre located just adjacent to Singapore’s famous shopping street, Orchard Road. As the world becomes increasingly urbanised and urban farming turns from a hipster fad into a sustainable necessity, architects have a responsibility to look for innovative solutions for the issue of food supply in a world with quickly depleting natural resources. At the WOHA studios in downtown Singapore, we have been learning about urban farming firsthand, by converting our rooftop terrace (pictured below) into a productive farm, supplying the office with fresh herbs and produce! It’s been an interesting experiment, and it’s easy to see how in the future, your salad may come fresh from a nearby hyper-efficient rooftop farm, rather than a carbon-intensive journey from a land based farm.