Tomato Town’s Inaugural Farm in Singapore!

In connection with the 30 by 30 goals set by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) to tackle the food security issues in Singapore, the Tomato Town Team set out to design and build a bespoke urban aeroponics farm in the heartlands of Singapore.

Challenges Faced

In the beginning, there were many challenges associated with the Covid-19 pandemic which caused the design and fabrication efforts to be delayed several times. With part of the team stationed in Japan and Malaysia, the team held many video conferences to finalise details of the design and manufacturing process so that the machines could be manufactured outside of Japan while maintaining its design qualities. One of the key challenges faced were the rising costs of materials due to the pandemic; due to increased shipping costs and material costs, costs of fabrication increased 4 fold on average, and at the same time increased our production leadtimes. This meant that cost control measures had to be introduced to ensure that costs remained feasible while juggling various material leadtimes to ensure that deadlines were met. Not being able to visit our vendors in person made things harder; however, with the normalization of video conferencing, we were able to oversee the production of key materials and components.

City Sprouts, Henderson Road

We were able to secure a small plot in City Sprouts, Henderson Road (appx 70sqm) which served as a springboard for our first farm in Singapore. Although the space is small with little facilities (one water tap & one 13A power outlet), we took these under consideration during the design process to ensure that our aeroponic system is light weight and energy efficient to work with these limitations. These were also part of the underlying principles we kept in mind during our research and development process; our systems had to be able to operate with minimal energy & space requirements.

Installation & Commissioning

On September 3rd , after many months of RnD, and countless video conferences, our first urban aeroponic farm finally arrived in Singapore! The installation and commissioning process was easy since we were familiar with the equipment (since we designed everything); all the components in the system were practically “plug & play”. Due to the prevailing Covid-19 safe management measures at the time, the installation process took 3 men and 6 hours to complete which was an added bonus.

Start of Production

In the limited space of our little plot, we are capable of producing up to 9,600kg of various vegetables annually. This further confirms the feasibility of our technology which serves as the launchpad for many more urban farms all around Singapore; ensuring sustainable urban agriculture for all Singaporeans.