Good food? It's grown just around the corner

Tan Hui Yee Straits Times 1 Jan 11;

MENTION 'community garden' and one thinks of retirees harvesting caterpillar-nibbled vegetables from plots the size of bathtubs or row upon row of frangipani and roses that are nice to look at but not to eat.

There are about 400 community gardens scattered around Singapore, mostly amateur efforts in residential neighbourhoods and schools that do not promise much in the way of economic returns.

But Mr Allan Lim, 38, chief executive of Alpha Biofuels, and fourth-generation farmer Kenny Eng, 37, from Nyee Phoe Group, are about to change that.

They have devised a plan to raise interest in community farming in an environmentally sustainable way and have even roped in coffee company Starbucks and downtown microbrewery Brewerkz.

The finer details are still being worked out, but this is how it will unfold once launched later this year:

Instead of throwing away used coffee grounds and hops, Starbucks and Brewerkz will give some to selected community gardens for use as compost ingredients.

Community gardeners, who will be trained to make compost from a nutrient-rich mixture of hops, coffee grounds and horticultural waste, will then sell the organic produce from their land back to Starbucks and Brewerkz and share the profits as a cooperative.

If all goes well, the two food and beverage chains will even tailor a part of their menu according to the fruit, vegetables or herbs produced by the community gardens.

Starbucks, which throws away several tonnes of coffee grounds every month from its 67 outlets islandwide, hopes to redirect up to 40 per cent of its waste to the project, says its Singapore managing director Jeff Miller.

It already runs the 'Grounds for your garden' scheme where customers can ask an outlet to save used grounds which they can then take home for free to use as compost.

Mr Lim hopes each community garden - which is expected to use 1.2 tonnes of coffee grounds or hops each year - will eventually be paired with a nearby Starbucks or Brewerkz outlet. Patrons at the Starbucks outlet in Thomson Plaza, for example, may find themselves nibbling on a gingerbread cookie made with ginger from a Thomson-area garden.

The vision is to create a small-scale, Singaporean version of the global 'locavore' movement, where environmentally conscious consumers try to eat food produced nearby to cut down their carbon footprint.

At the same time, it could help younger Singaporeans, growing up in an urban setting, develop a closer relationship with the environment their food is grown in, says Mr Eng. This is especially crucial because land-scarce Singapore imports most of what it eats.

Finally, it could raise the profile of community farming. Mr Lim says: 'When the public think about community farming, they think of it as a pastime. They don't see it as economically viable. And, most of the time, they don't grow fantastic stuff.'

Mr Fred Chong, chairman of Goldhill Gardening Club, which runs an award-winning community garden off Dunearn Road, concedes as much.

The semi-retiree, who is in his 60s, says: 'We once asked a farmer to come and grade our produce. He gave us 10 marks out of 100. The vegetables looked like rejects to him; he said he couldn't sell them on the market.

'But he gave us full marks for our enthusiasm about our koyak vegetables full of holes,' he adds, using the Malay word for 'spoilt'.

Under this scheme, the community gardeners will be encouraged not to turn to intensive monoculture farming, where only one type of crop is grown, says Mr Lim.

'They can plant three fig trees, one starfruit tree, one mango tree; it can look well designed and pleasing to the eye.'

The gardeners also need not worry about having to fulfil any production quota.

Mr Eng says: 'Size doesn't matter. It's the spirit of getting the right people to do the right thing.

'If even two bunches of bananas from these plots can be made into 10 muffins, then we would have succeeded.'

For now, both men are busy putting together various parts of the plan.

Mr Lim's company is researching the best conditions for the coffee and hop compost, which will then be tested on a pilot community garden.

They then plan to invite community gardeners for networking and information-sharing sessions. Various community development councils will help pick good gardens for the first phase of this project.

Asked who will fund the project, both men laugh nervously. Mr Lim reveals his company has already ploughed more than $6,000 into the venture while Mr Eng implores: 'We hope to convince more corporations to join us.'

They remain hopeful that more companies - big and small, from cafes to curry-puff makers - will see value in this local food venture.

Mr Lim says: 'Who's to say Old Chang Kee won't use local potatoes?'