[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-ray-poh-indoor-urban-farmer\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-ray-poh-indoor-urban-farmer\/","headline":"In Conversation With: Ray Poh, Indoor Urban Farmer","name":"In Conversation With: Ray Poh, Indoor Urban Farmer","description":"\u201cI never thought about farming much, growing up in Singapore when I was younger,\u201d Ray Poh tells TheHomeGround Asia.\u00a0 And it was during his teenage years going to school in Australia that he became exposed to a variety of farms and agricultural activities.\u00a0 Years down the road, this would prove the inspiration for his current […]","datePublished":"2021-10-15","dateModified":"2022-06-29","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/#Person","name":"Rachel Teng","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/","identifier":367,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1634312087554_In_Conversation_With_Ray_Poh2C_Indoor_Urban_Farmer_1280X626px.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/1634312087554_In_Conversation_With_Ray_Poh2C_Indoor_Urban_Farmer_1280X626px.jpg","height":626,"width":1280},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-ray-poh-indoor-urban-farmer\/","about":["Community","Environment","Features","In Conversation With","Local","Singapore"],"wordCount":1518,"keywords":["30 by 30","30by30","artisan green","in conversation with","localproduce","ray poh","series","supportlocal","urban farmer","urban farming","urban indoor farmer"],"articleBody":"\u201cI never thought about farming much, growing up in Singapore when I was younger,\u201d Ray Poh tells TheHomeGround Asia.\u00a0And it was during his teenage years going to school in Australia that he became exposed to a variety of farms and agricultural activities.\u00a0Years down the road, this would prove the inspiration for his current research into futuristic agricultural technologies, resulting in his modern take on farming. \u201cThat\u2019s when I stumbled upon hydroponics, and I thought that indoor farming was not only interesting, but also the way ahead for Singapore\u2019s food security issues,\u201d he added.\u00a0Ray\u2019s radical career switch came after he had spent five years in Macau\u2019s casino gaming industry.His new vocation is Artisan Green, a three-year-old pilot farm of about 3,000 square feet in Kallang which currently generates about 100 kilograms of fresh greens per week. By the end of this month (October 2021), the mid-sized farm is looking to double its output by upgrading its water pumps to accommodate the sheer amount of crops it is growing.\u00a0\u00a0And its growth, pun intended, has not gone unnoticed. \u201cWe\u2019ve had many investors who were interested in doing a round of fundraising for us, but prior to this point, we wanted to focus more on developing and understanding the operational and cost aspects via our pilot farm,\u201d says Mr Poh. \u201cBut now, after three years of research and development (R&D), we realised that we actually have pretty much everything in place.\u201d\u00a0Artisan Green is projected to break even by the end of 2021 \u2014 and could perhaps even begin to generate profits. Moving forward, Mr Poh and team are looking to relocate in order to be able to scale up \u2013 by a targeted 60 times \u2013 with the support of several strategic investors. \u201cWith a larger farm, what we\u2019re growing will be quite different. Instead of just baby greens, we will be complementing our produce with a mixture of fully grown vegetables as well,\u201d he adds.\u00a0Mr Poh believes that the government\u2019s \u201c30 by 30\u201d goal \u2014\u00a0to produce 30 percent of the nation\u2019s needs by 2030\u00a0\u2014 is \u201crather ambitious, but that it\u2019s good for us to have this moonshot of a target\u201d. He hopes for Artisan Green to contribute up to 5 percent of this 30 after scaling up.\u00a0The farm\u2019s products are currently on Redmart, Amazon, NTUC Fairprice online, and Grab supermarket, among many other local grocery stores. While currently having a 10 to 15 percent online audience, Mr Poh foresees a greater shift into brick and mortar retail stores as they start working with larger players with bulkier demands.\u00a0Join TheHomeGround Asia in finding out more about the intricacies behind urban indoor farming, Singapore\u2019s agricultural scene, and how it compares to traditional farming methods \u2014 in terms of ecological footprint, price, and taste.\u00a0TheHomeGround Asia (THG): What kinds of produce is Artisan Green currently rolling out, and why did you choose them?\u00a0Ray Poh (RP): We don\u2019t view other local farms as competitors; we view the imports as our competitors. So we wanted to find a type of produce that no other farms were growing in Singapore, but that still had strong demand and scalability. That is why we first started out with baby spinach.\u00a0Now, we\u2019ve got baby spinach and baby red kale. On our herb line, we\u2019re producing lemon basil, dill, coriander, and chives. In about a month\u2019s time, we\u2019re rolling out a mixed salad product. It\u2019s a spinach and red kale mix and we\u2019re calling it the \u201cKallang Raw\u201d \u2014 an ode to Kallang Roar, since we\u2019re based in Kallang right now!\u00a0THG: Was the learning curve steep?\u00a0RP: Definitely, especially since I did not have a science background. When you think about farming, you might not think it\u2019s a science. But in fact, agricultural science is really important for not just indoor farming, but outdoor farming as well. It took me a year to do in-depth research before I started Artisan Green, and about three years before we got to the point we are at now.\u00a0For example, every time we research a new crop, it takes us about two to three months to finalise and optimise our farming processes for maximum yield. For baby spinach, germination might take up to seven days with traditional farming methods, especially under Singapore\u2019s climate. But we found a way to prime our seeds such that germination rates are close to 100 percent within three to four days. We\u2019re also looking to cut down the life cycle of our spinach from three weeks to two.\u00a0THG: How do your products compare with traditionally farmed products, in terms of taste?\u00a0RP: Spinach itself is touted as a very nutritional vegetable. Everyone thinks about Popeye when they think spinach. But whenever I taste regular spinach, it just seems very bland. So I\u2019m pretty sure people are eating it for its nutritional claims.\u00a0Growing up, I\u2019ve eaten a lot of spinach \u2014 even more so over the last few years. When we try our own produce, the taste is so much stronger that it almost feels like a completely different vegetable. So some people get a shock when they taste our spinach because it\u2019s nothing like the spinach they taste that they purchase off supermarket shelves.\u00a0THG: How about price? How does it compare to imported produce right now?\u00a0RP: In terms of pricing, we\u2019re a little bit more premium at the moment, But we\u2019re pretty much on par with organic imported produce. As long as we\u2019re not at 100 percent production, it\u2019s going to be hard to cover our costs and keep our prices low. It took us three years of research to be able to hit this level, but we will be able to match imported produce prices once we scale up with our new farm.\u00a0THG: How do you deal with ugly produce?\u00a0RP: Every time we harvest, there\u2019s definitely a portion of it that doesn\u2019t meet the supermarkets\u2019 standards. Currently, we\u2019re working with food suppliers to upcycle these crops into pesto, so we try and reduce food waste as much as possible.\u00a0By optimising our process for shorter life cycles, we are able to be more flexible when supplying to supermarkets. So within a month, we can actually grow to demand, changing our production output to gear towards supermarkets\u2019 demands, sometimes even cutting out a certain line of product completely.\u00a0THG: How does the carbon footprint of your indoor farm compare to that of traditional farms?\u00a0RP: We definitely use more electricity than outdoor farms because we use LED lights in place of sunlight, but we\u2019ve tried to conserve as much energy as possible over time.\u00a0When we first started off we were using 28-watt LED lights, but after doing a bit of research, we actually decreased the voltage to 20-watts. That\u2019s about 20 percent savings in electricity, which also translates to us using less air conditioning, because less heat is generated.\u00a0THG: What about other ecological impacts to which traditional farming is often privy to?\u00a0RP: Since ours is an indoor farm, we ourselves don\u2019t want to be breathing in pesticides. So we don\u2019t use any pesticides at all.\u00a0In terms of our water footprint, we use 90 percent less water than traditional outdoor farms because we use a recirculating method to feed nutrients to the plants. And since all our nutrients are recirculated into the system, we don\u2019t cause nutrient runoff into the surrounding lands, which may cause other environmental issues overseas such as algae bloom. Our water bill is less than $100 a month.\u00a0THG: What do you think of the urban farming scene in Singapore currently?\u00a0RP: The rollout of government grants have sprouted a lot more urban farms within the last three years, us included. I think it will be a very interesting scene, but I also hope that most, if not all, of them, survive. It\u2019s not a very easy market based on our last three years of experience.\u00a0We definitely want to see more farmers around in Singapore, because that gets us closer to the 30 by 30 goal that the government has set for Singapore. This goal has actually encouraged a lot of young Singaporeans to reach out and collaborate with us, either by having internships or working at the farm itself.\u00a0THG: How does Singapore\u2019s (urban) farming scene compare to those overseas?\u00a0RP: In many European countries such as the Netherlands, they have agriculture as a big part of their economy and even history. They\u2019re very good at greenhouse technology, so it will take us a little bit of time to catch up. It\u2019s a very nascent industry and we do have good talent in Singapore, but we need to complement it with consultation, partnerships, and education from overseas. I would say that it will still take us about five to 10 years to get there; we have much to learn.\u00a0Join the conversations on TheHomeGround Asia’s Facebook and Instagram, and get the latest updates via Telegram."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"In Conversation With: Ray Poh, Indoor Urban Farmer","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-ray-poh-indoor-urban-farmer\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]