some Urban Farms are expecting higher electricity costs to power up their operations in the months ahead now they say the upcoming linia and monsoon season will bring cloudier Skies but they expect to maintain their output by leaning into technology and better infrastructure Rachel Ting finds out more the forecast is looking to be cloudy for farms in Singapore as the World Meteorological organization sees a higher chance of the linia phenomenon to hit southeast Asia but Urban rooftop Farms like com crop expect to weather the tough conditions ahead it stood strong against the downpours and winds from
the recent Sumatran squalls when we were building these green houses we had already taken into account the the weather in Singapore including the monsoon winds and also the cross winds from being higher up on the building Mr Tan says imported vegetable prices typically go up during the year end when traditional Farms overseas are affected by the bad weather but high-tech Farms like his are still able to grow their crops even during Rainer Seasons By closely monitoring the weather and adjusting for it now these shade cloths that cover the green houses help to protect the crops
from heat on sunnier days but on cloudier days like these the weather monitors will help to detect lower levels of sunlight automatically triggering the shake CL cles to roll back and let in more lights to keep up their crop Harvest even on cloudier days these LED lights will be switched on but using the LEDs will be costly the electricity bill can go up by as much as 20% but the higher power bill is offset by the rainwater harvesting system this system helps save 60% on the water bills compared to 30% during drier months one farming
consultant says traditional Farms here may still be affected the inter Monsoon period which is around October to November that's where you know um farmers are not expecting so much rain so if the monsoon and rainfall increases then then uh crops can be damaged uh physically um leaves or stems can be broken from the heavy impact of of rain and strong winds he says Community Farms may switch to rain loving crops during wetter months but commercial Farms may be more sensitive to Market demands while Some Farms stay Outdoors to take advantage of natural sunlight others believe
indoor farming is the future you can control the temperature you can control the humidity you can control the CO2 level you can control the light intensity the light hours your neutrient level so basically every growing parameter is controlled rain or shine these Farmers hope to remain resilient to help Singapore achieve the goal of locally producing 30% of its nutritional needs by 2030
