World’s first low-water, low-energy vertical farm opens in Singapore

Singapore's Sky Greens vertical farm is a compact solution to low-impact food production.

With an ever-growing global population and ever-diminishing natural resources, solutions for low-carbon compact farming could prove vital in the future. Japanese company Daiwa House Industry has already offered its Agri-Cube hydroponic unit, and now the Sky Greens vertical farm in Singapore is the world’s first low-water, low-energy urban food production space. Hoping to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign food, the garden can produce 500kg of vegetables per day in the 120 nine-meter aluminium towers that make up the farm. The system is powered by hydraulics, which rotate the shelves in order to save on land, of which there is a scarcity in the mostly urban Singapore. The whole farm is located in a greenhouse, which maintains the conditions required for vegetables to grow all year round. Although the produce comes at a slightly higher price for consumers, the method is a sustainable way to create food for locals, who currently rely on imports for 93 percent of their vegetables, according to the company. The farm is able to produce leafy greens such as Chinese cabbage, lettuce, spinach, nai bai and bayam. For many locations, urban farming projects such as Sky Greens provide city-dwellers with fresh produce that doesn’t have to travel halfway around the world before it arrives on consumers’ plates. With current technology being able to produce greens only, could more advanced systems tackle other types of vegetables in the future? Spotted by: Raymond Kollau