Tower farms may be the answer to Singapore's future food needs

It's time to grow upwards
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 25 Nov 08;

WITH food prices going up and imported food scares happening so often, is there a way to make Singapore more food-sufficient?

Yes, if Singapore is prepared to 'grow up'. That means building more sky-scrapers - to plant crops.

Even big countries will have to do that in the next 50 years because the earth's population is projected to hit almost 9.5 billion people, and there's not going to be enough land to grow food.

In a study, Professor Dickson Despommier of Columbia University in New York found that in the future, crops will have to be grown vertically, in huge towers right in the heart of cities.

Harvests grown in such tower farms will not be damaged by adverse weather. The use of soil-free cultivation methods will also result in much higher yield: Five to 30 times higher than on traditional farms.

Prof Despommier was quoted in the October issue of Discovery Channel Magazine: 'In 2050, 80 per cent of the world's population will be city dwellers. So by producing everything this population needs on the spot, we will reduce greenhouse gas emissions because there will no longer be any need to transport the food from the country to the city.

'By moving the farms into urban centres, we can give the numerous natural areas we have transformed into fields back to the earth. Whole forests will be able to grow back using the carbon dioxide that we are releasing into the atmosphere.'

Not only will these vertical farms feed people, they will also produce water and energy.

The concept has attracted investors and the first prototype could be built in the eco-city of Dongtan, China, in 2015.

What do local farmers think of such high-tech farms?

Gardenasia director Kenny Eng, who was selected by the Royal Agriculture Society of the Commonwealth to attend a next-generation agriculture conference in New Zealand last week, said: 'Vertical greening or farming is not new. Years ago, I came across similar ideas where they were stacking containers instead of building a tower.

'For such concepts to become reality, there must be public awareness - acceptance of such a farming method and the willingness to support it.'

There is also a need to train new age farmers for such tasks.

Miss Wan Xiao Xi of Jurong Frog Farm, 25, who was also selected for the conference, said: 'The future of farming here can only take a leap forward if our Government starts to prioritise the importance of self-sustenance in our country.'

Mrs Ivy Singh-Lim, president of the Kranji Countryside Association, said the vertical farm concept is 'very interesting'.

Singapore can start by creating food gardens all around HDB flats and even on the rooftops. She thinks a certain portion of food should be produced locally because there may come a time when other countries don't want to export food due to poor harvests caused by global warming.

Money not enough

'There will come a day when we may not be able to import food, no matter how much money we have,' she said.

'Look at all the western and developed countries - the governments there ensure that their farming communities are kept alive.

'Surely there's a message there that we can learn from. Or are we waiting for a food crisis to hit us like the financial crisis? You can print money overnight but you can't grow food overnight.'

When asked about vertical farming, a spokesman for the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said: 'AVA strongly encourages our local farmers to apply agri-technology to improve farm productivity. The technology must be economically viable, and the produce must be safe and price competitive when compared with similar produce that are imported or produced locally using other methods.'

Not enough land, so rich countries grow outwards
Deals to help secure food supply; critics say they push out farmers from poor states
The New Paper 25 Nov 08;

AS rich nations and corporations grapple with high food prices and land scarcity, they are finding solutions to their problems in poor states.

According to The Guardian, rich governments are buying up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries.

Their moves are motivated by the need to secure their long-term food supplies. And now farmers at these poor countries are worried.

Mr Jacques Diouf, the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, has warned that the rise in land deals could create a form of 'neo-colonialism' where poor states produce food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people.

Rising food prices have already set off a second 'scramble for Africa', said the British daily.

This week, South Korean firm Daewoo Logistics said it plans to buy a 99-year lease on 1,000,000 ha in Madagascar. It aims to grow 5 million tonnes of corn a year by 2023, and produce palm oil from a further lease of 120,000 ha of land.

'These deals can be purely commercial ventures on one level, but sitting behind it is often a food security imperative backed by a government,' said Mr Carl Atkin, a consultant at Bidwells Agribusiness, a firm helping to arrange some of the international land deals.

Madagascar's government said that an environmental impact assessment would have to be carried out before the South Korean deal could be approved, but it welcomed the investment.

'In the context of arable land sales, this is unprecedented,' Mr Atkin said. 'We're used to seeing 100,000 ha sales. This is more than 10 times as much.'

At a food security summit in Rome, in June, there was agreement to channel more investment and development aid to African farmers to help them respond to higher prices by producing more.

But governments and corporations in some cash-rich but land-poor states, mostly in the Middle East, are trying to guarantee their own long-term access to food by buying up land in poorer countries.

According to diplomats, the Saudi Binladin Group is planning an investment in Indonesia to grow basmati rice, while tens of thousands of hectares in Pakistan have been sold to Abu Dhabi investors.

Arab investors have also bought direct stakes in Sudanese agriculture.

The president of the UEA, Mr Khalifa bin Zayed, has said his country was considering big agricultural projects in Kazakhstan to ensure a stable food supply.

Even China has begun to explore land deals in South-east Asia.

Laos, meanwhile, has signed away between 2 million and 3 million hectares of its viable farmland.

Eager buyers generally have been welcomed by sellers in developing world governments who are desperate for capital in a recession.

'If this was a negotiation between equals, it could be a good thing. It could bring investment, stable prices and predictability to the market,' said Mr Duncan Green, Oxfam's head of research.

'But the problem is, in this scramble for soil, I don't see any place for the small farmers.'

Mr Alex Evans, at the Centre on International Cooperation, at New York University, said: 'The small farmers are losing out already. People without solid title are likely to be turfed off the land.'