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 A unit of the electronics conglomerate last week started selling to
a chain of Japanese restaurants in Singapore fresh produce grown in
what it says is the first licensed indoor vegetable farm in the
island state.
The move ties Panasonic's deeper push into farming technology with
land-scarce Singapore's ambition to reduce its near-total reliance
on food imports.
"We foresee agriculture to be a potential growth portfolio, given
the global shortage of arable land, climate change and increasing
demand for quality food as well as stable food supply," Hideki Baba,
managing director of Panasonic Factory Solutions Asia Pacific, told
reporters.
The facility, which presently has a small production capacity of 3.6
tonnes annually, produces 10 types of vegetables such as mini red
radishes and baby spinach.
Indoor farming has found favor with other hi-tech Japanese companies
as well. Fujitsu Ltd is growing lettuce at its Fukushima province
plant, while Sharp Corp is testing growing strawberries indoors in
Dubai.
In Singapore, Panasonic's 248 square meter farm is located inside a
factory building on the outskirts of the city, where standard
fluorescent lighting gives way to a pinkish-purple glow from LED
lights brought in to nurture the plants. The company restricts
visitors to maintain the controlled levels of temperature, humidity
and carbon dioxide.
It aims to grow more than 30 crop varieties by March 2017 and
account for around 5 percent of local vegetable production. It said
the vegetables grown at its facility could be half the price of
those flown in from Japan.
Panasonic said Singapore was ideal for its indoor farm due to the
country's low food self-sufficiency and limited land.
Singapore, ranked by the World Bank as the second most densely
populated country, imports more than 90 percent of its food.
Singapore produced nearly 22,000 tonnes of vegetables in 2013,
compared with a little more than 17,000 tonnes in 2004, according to
the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority. Last year it imported
514,574 tonnes of vegetables.
While Singapore ranks fifth out of 109 countries in the Economist
Intelligence Unit's global food security index, the government wants
to diversify its food sources and become more self reliant in
producing eggs, fish and leafy vegetables.
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As part of its efforts, it has provided some funding and research
support to local vertical farming company Sky Greens, which grows
leafy vegetables at its farm in three-storey high frames inside
greenhouses.
The farm currently has 600 such towers and intends to expand to
2,000 by next year. It can produce up to one tonne of vegetables a
day, which it sells to local supermarket FairPrice. Some farms in
Singapore are also using aeroponics or hydroponics - growing plants
without soil.
Agro-technology expert Lee Sing Kong said Singapore can improve its
food security for perishable items like vegetables, which cannot be
stored for long periods unlike grains, by using new techniques of
cultivation to increase productivity.
"We must grow some of our own in order to provide a kind of buffer
during the period when supply has been disrupted," said Lee, a
professor of biological sciences at Singapore's Nanyang
Technological University.
Still, some locally grown produce comes at a premium. At FairPrice,
Sky Greens' nai bai vegetable retails at more than double the price
of an import from China.
(1 US dollar = 1.2470 Singapore dollar)
(Additional reporting by Sophie Knight in TOKYO; Editing by Rachel
Armstrong and Emily Kaiser)
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