Singapore’s Bold Plan to Build the Farms of the Future

this is the singapore that we all know it's modern futuristic incredibly green and home some of our world's most impressive buildings from airports to hotels and even floating apple stores but there's one thing you won't really find here farmland [Music] singapore currently imports 90 of its food supply that means when something like say a global pandemic or geopolitical tensions disrupt the supply chain being able to produce your own food within your own borders suddenly becomes really important to make its food supply more resilient the singaporean government has laid out an ambitious goal produce 30 of its own food by 2030 but unused land in singapore is hard to come by so urban farms are popping up inside outside and everywhere in between as the world's urban population continues to grow these might just be the farms of the future and construction will need to know how to build them [Music] today singapore's population is 100 urbanized and traditional farmland makes up just one percent of the city's landmass but it hasn't always been this way [Music] agriculture has never been a huge part of singapore's economy in the 1960s it accounted for around four percent of gdp but as singapore continued to invest in urban development economic focus shifted away from farming and towards manufacturing and by the early 2000s agriculture's role in singapore's economy was almost non-existent we have lost probably generations of knowledge and also participation in in food production uh in you know in our country so i wanted to see what i could do to sort of really like that a little bit that's bjorn lowe a digital marketer turned urban farmer who co-founded edible garden city we've built 260 edible gardens in singapore whether it's for homes hotels restaurants on top of shopping malls in schools and then in a lot of various underutilized land around the city over the last decade bjorn has seen the sector shift from being led by smaller farmers like himself to getting major government and industry investment so you have a lot of big commercial players coming in whether it's from the fish farms or the egg farms you know we you have uh technology providers coming from holland uh from japan wanting to use singapore as a platform as a launch pad for their technology it has become a well oiled ecosystem or almost an ecosystem at this point in a sense the groundwork has already been laid for edible landscaping in singapore thanks to a 2009 city planning policy called lush which stands for landscaping for urban spaces and high rises it requires developers to incorporate greenery into their plans and has helped give rise to a massive landscaping industry in the city in 2017 lush was updated to include a provision that allowed rooftop farms to count towards the required landscape replacement area of a building now with the government's 30 by 30 push to produce more of its own food urban farming looking like it could have its own renaissance building quite literally on top of the success of lush so singapore is looking at a strategy of increasing production from that one percent of land true technology approaches whether it's building vertical farms factory indoor farms battery farm production systems for eggs and intensive agriculture systems right now you're probably picturing something like this and to some degree you're right indoor farming is part of singapore's plan artisan green grows spinach in a controlled indoor environment using water instead of soil and pesticides everything from the light to the temperature can be optimized for the specific crops sky greens uses hydraulic power to rotate and irrigate crops in modular vertical frames the racks can be stacked up to 9 meters and housed in outdoor greenhouses but while controlled environments can help avoid some of the pitfalls of traditional farming like water pollution caused by pesticide runoff the process can be quite energy intensive and after labor energy and technology costs it can be hard for urban farmers to compete with the price of imports we know that the food system is challenged because of the approaches of industrialized production by creating control environment agriculture warehouses of plant factories for example we're falling back into the same space so while once we have that as one approach which is highly publicized and focused on we need alternative approach to that one alternative to growing crops inside buildings is to simply build farms on top of them in partnership with the singapore food agency city cityponix opened a pilot commercial farm on the rooftop of a multi-story car park where it grows lettuce spinach and basil or basil if you're watching in the u.s using its hydroponic vertical farming racks and edible garden city has designed urban farms to live on top of shopping malls car parks and even in an unused outdoor jacuzzi the government's making more space available for larger scale farms too since 2020 it's offered up to at least 16 carpark rooftop sites to be rented out for three years as urban farms in addition to contributing to the 30 by 30 goal the government said urban farms can also help to cool the city through rooftop greenery design firms are also looking to the urban island as they think about the future of sustainable design gensler's come up with ideas to incorporate farming solutions into park benches building facades and even ceilings and arab visited singapore back in 2019 to explore the future of urban agriculture but when it comes to urban farming going from concept to construction is only half the battle the biggest challenge of all may be getting people to actually eat the food especially when it comes with a higher price tag it really requires everyone to participate in it right whether it is growing that leafy greens at home and understanding that process or then starting community farms within you know their hdb blocks to drive a community effort to food growing i think that is that is really important because we may never hit the 30 by 30 if we don't have a whole society approach because industry can only do that much government can only do that much so everyone needs to participate singapore isn't the first to turn to urban farming in the 1990s cuba began building its own urban farming infrastructure out of necessity because of the collapse of the soviet union which led the country to lose roughly half of its oil imports and today cities including sao paulo seoul and tokyo all have their own urban farming initiatives what makes singapore unique is that it's essentially building an agriculture industry from the ground up what if we can develop and maintain a purposeful landscape or edible landscape and if we can start to build a landscape nutritional index instead of how much greenery there is we can start to count how much carbohydrates there is in this given development uh how much protein are we producing from the root vegetables or or the moringa tree the leaves are high in protein it can become a later food bank to build a layer of resiliency for the state and that potentially can get us to hitting the 30 by by 2030. right now singapore is a kind of test case for modern day urban farming if it takes off then it could serve as a blueprint for how we build the food resilient cities of the future but only if everyone gets on board if this video is growing on you and you want to learn more about where construction is headed make sure you're subscribed to tomorrow's build you

Channel: Tomorrow's Build

Views: 1,499,312

Rating: 4.8898988 out of 5

Keywords: construction, architecture, engineering, Tomorrow's Build, tomorrowsbuild, TomorrowsBuild, tomorrows build, B1M, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, future, singapore, 30by30, urban farm, vertical farm, community farm, hydroponics, rooftop farm, rooftop garden, lush, rooftop greenery, innovation, food supply, agritech, food technology, agriculture, singapore farming agency, edible garden city, citiponics, artisan green, sky greens, urbanisation, singapore urban redevelopment, bjorn low

Id: 2ueVw83Plec

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 13 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/hawaiiinsomniac]

No.

Have you seen the rail project? 😅

[u/Im_not_Sober]

Absolutely. The "imports are cheaper" problem that Singapore has only exists to a lesser extent in Hawaii.

[u/RoarkeC]

We absolutely need to incentivize local farming and disincentivize imported foods.

Don't tax locally grown foods.

Increase taxes on imported foods.

[u/Digerati808]

No. Singapore’s system of public housing and sustainable agriculture works because their society is a lot more collectivist and authoritarian. We have widespread backlash to just getting people to wear masks.

[u/yeahdixon]

​

Larry Ellison set one up at Sensei farms ($$$$)

​

So yes, it could be part of the solution. Couple things to keep in mind. Indoor and urban farms can require large amounts of energy and still require "inputs"(imports) like lots of fertilizers . Also vertical farms can require enormous upfront cost depending. that said they can be efficient with water and fertilizers and can reduce pest pressure.

​

Singapore is highly highly urban- so we have way way more land based options. Soil science and knowledge in sustainable practices have vasty improved and so land based options are great opportunities .

[u/dictatortots_2000]

Why would you do this when you're sitting on one of the most fertile pieces of land on the planet? Build the houses on nutrient poor, dry areas and keep the fertile land for agriculture.

Edit: Just for comparison and consideration, Singapore has 5M+ people. Hawaii has 1M+ people. Singapore has less than 281 sq mi. Just Oahu is already 597 sq mi. Singapore is desperate for space.

[u/Catchthedisc]

I suppose at some point we will have to. Might as well get ready.

[u/Smokihana808]

Singapore has adult supervision

[u/PunaTic_4_EvA]

Two words: POLITICAL WILL (never happen in Hawaii with the current state of gamesmanship in politics)