But strawberries are just the testbed for the technology. While Singrow’s small-scale farm supplies to some hotels here and sells its produce online, to ramp up production the agri-tech start-up is providing its plants and tech to larger farms in the region.
On Monday (Apr 11), it signed agreements with two farms – one in Malaysia and one in Thailand – as part of its global expansion plans, and it is also branching out to China. The Singrow Farm at the Science Park, which was officially opened on Monday, will serve as the company’s research and development hub.
Besides strawberries, it is also developing 30 other crop varieties, including rice, palm oil, saffron, cherry tomatoes and some types of leafy vegetables.
“The reason we choose all these different crops is, first of all, we see some market pains from current production. And secondly, our technology can be easily adapted to solve these problems for all these given crops.”
For example, 95 per cent of saffron is farmed in one country – Iran – using conventional practices, so the supply and quality are unstable, said Dr Bao.
“In our case, we are able to grow the saffron under a controlled environment,” he said. This has led to a harvest in four months – or about half the time it usually takes.