Vegetable farm and vehicles share a carpark in Hougang
Added on 10 October 2023
Besides maximising land use, Greenhood stands out from other rooftop farms because its vegetables are grown in a climate-controlled greenhouse. This means the vegetables on the 1,808sq m farm are not exposed to the elements of weather, and pesticides are not needed.
Greenhood, a commercial company, won a government tender three years ago to run the rooftop farm, which began operations in June.
Seedlings are first grown on an ebb and flow table, where they are watered and the water drained, for three weeks until they are about 5cm tall.
They are then transferred to vertical aeroponic panels and fed nutrient-rich water for another three weeks until they are ready for harvest.
Niven Ang, 27, is seen here harvesting some bayam at the end of a farm tour.
“The harvesting was a lot easier than typical soil harvesting because you can just pluck it off the columns. Whereas in soil harvesting, you have to uproot the entire thing from the soil,” he said.
His wife Cheryl Lee, 25, said: “We got to try their produce from there, and it’s really fresh compared to what we get in the market.”
Greenhood founder and CEO Gaurav Saraf (pointing in the picture below) gave up his job as a director in a Japanese bank to devote himself to running the farm because he wanted to do “something tangible and indisputable in terms of actual contribution to the planet”.
“When you look at the current farming practices, it’s not very sustainable,” he said. “It takes thousands of kilometres for crops to reach consumers. Then there’s all that carbon footprint and consumers also don’t get fresh produce. So I find that the whole system is broken and there’s a lot of food waste as well.”
Photo Courtesy of Greenhood
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