Aeroponics method ranked among top 3 green solutions in Discovery Channel series
Jalelah Abu Baker, Straits Times 4 Feb 09;
HE HAS perfected the art of growing temperate vegetables in sunny Singapore.
Professor Lee Sing Kong's urban farming technique of growing top-grade produce in air - sans pesticide and fertilisers - is among 20 technologies worldwide, including Singapore's Semakau Landfill, that have been singled out as potential green solutions for the future.
Prof Lee's technique, called aeroponics, was ranked among the top three solutions chosen in the Discovery Channel's Ecopolis series, which explores environmentally-friendly ways to sustain an overcrowded, polluted world in 2050.
Aeroponics, developed 12 years ago, involves growing crops by suspending their roots in troughs and spraying them with a nutrient mist.
It has been touted as a possible urban farming solution, given how easy it is to set up and its compact land use.
One farm in Singapore has already been successful with it, and currently sells vegetables such as lettuce and basil commercially.
Prof Lee said he was proud to have been highlighted in the series.
'It is encouragement to continue pursuing new frontiers, even though the ideas may sound bizarre,' said the 57-year-old, who now gives technical advice to Aero-Green Technology, an aeroponics farm at Lim Chu Kang Agrotechnology Park.
The son of rubber and oil palm plantation farmers, Prof Lee added that his work had been driven by the dream of helping to alleviate poverty and hunger.
'Many farmers do not have the knowledge to optimise food production,' he said.
'I have worked with people who are still very primitive in agricultural practices. It is hard to teach them, but you need to persevere.'
The Semakau Landfill, which is managed by the National Environment Agency (NEA), was lauded as an example of eco-friendly urban waste management.
It features a clean and efficient way of getting rid of the toxic ash that is a by-product of incineration. The ash is stored in plastic-lined, watertight storage spaces on Semakau Island, which lies about 8km south of Singapore.
When these spaces are full, they are covered up with a layer of earth, and eventually become grassland.
As a result of this, the 350ha island has healthy mangrove swamps, forests and coral beds despite being a landfill.
The other top two solutions hailed by the Ecopolis series were nano solar technology and a form of transport called the e-Jeepney, which is powered by electricity.
Jeepneys are the most popular form of transport in Manila, and the e-version was cited for cutting down on air pollution in the city.
All the other innovations featured in the Ecopolis series were in the areas of food and water, transport, energy and buildings, and came from countries such as the United States and Australia.
