Sunday, June 9, 2013

To increase local food production, crowded Singapore grows up

A new super-efficient vertical farming system in Singapore is producing greens for the 5 million residents of the crowded city-state.

The system is helping increase Singapore’s food security, while also helping cut down on the climate impact of food production.

Every night around midnight hundreds of trucks enter Singapore from Malaysia and beyond to unload their cargoes of imported fruit and vegetables at the sprawling Pasir Panjang wholesale center. Buyers pick through bins of bok choy, chives and eggplant, then load their goods onto smaller trucks, and fan out before sunrise across this crowded city-state of more than five million people.

It’s a window into the complex daily supply chain of fresh food in a country that grows only seven percent of its produce. It’s also a window into the future. A recent report by the Potsdam Institute projects that over half of the world’s population could rely on food imports by 2050, a trend driven by more and...

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Similar to Japan, Singapore imports most of its food. An innovative individual has designed vertical gardens in order to grow more plants in a limited space.

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