Ah Tan Blog
2021-04-13
【Climate Innovation Stories】Singapore’s Initiative on Food Resilience (II): Edible Car Parks
Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and Housing & Development Board (HDB) announced another seven sites at HDB’s car park rooftops for rental by public tender in February 2021, following the nine sites being launched in the first tender, which are now operated by six startups, functions including production of edible crops, processing and storage, and R&D related to hydroponics, vertical agriculture, and blockchain solutions for agriculture, with which an annual production of 1,600 tonnes of vegetables is estimated. SFA evaluates bids through price, production volume, design and sales plan, and also an EIA by NParks. It is hoping to build a cross-sectoral relationship, together with startups to enhance market chances of urban farming, while building supply chains inside these communities such as encouraging supermarkets within the community to expand the distribution channel for these farms. HDB also benefits from this circulation, by reaching its greening goal within the Green Towns Programme, but also provided with a prototype for future new town development.
The Singapore government is actively seeking cross-sectoral collaboration to build a resilient city, as such the above initiative is also part of the ‘30 by 30’ vision, just like Gardening with Edibles. Government sectors reach out for urban spaces together to increase the opportunity for edible production, especially public spaces that are within neighbourhoods, with HDB’s car park rooftops being one example. The sites are deliberately chosen as adjacent to each other, in order to maximise logistic merit and economies of scale.
Back in Hong Kong, we have LCSD’s community garden programme, but most urban farms are actuated by private companies and thus located in industrial or office buildings. The above model which aims at localizing food production within the neighbourhood, is not only a method of increasing public spaces’ efficiency, but also a great way to increase food security resilience, and to reduce food mileage hence the carbon emission of everyone’s meal.
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