SINGAPORE — Originating from the cooler coastal regions of South Africa, crystalline ice plants have in recent years appeared in the daily greens of salad lovers with its distinctive crunchy texture and frosty appearance.
But instead of being imported from Cape Town, the crop is more likely to be harvested from an hydroponics farm in Sembawang, which have been growing these vegetables since 2018.
The trend comes amid the Singapore Food Agency’s push towards the"30 by 30" goal, a food security target for the agri-food industry here to sustainably produce 30 per cent of Singapore's nutritional needs by 2030. Far from being a niche crop, they are being sold in Singapore's supermarkets like Sheng Siong. To date, at least three other farms have begun to grow ice plants too.
"Those who will appreciate the price of it because it’s rare and it’s not easy to grow. It takes three months to harvest it compared to lettuce which two to three weeks," Ms Low said.Artisan Green founder Mr Ray Poh, 37, said he landed on the decision to grow baby spinach as his key crop when he started out in 2018 after he studied the market and realised that there was a gap in the market.
That also means that locally grown baby spinach can be fresher than those imported from overseas, due to the shorter supply chain involved, he added. "Our crop range will be even more diverse as we are rolling out a range of 30 different crops," he said, adding that it includes other crops such as thyme and dandelion.
After all, imported strawberries are harvested prematurely in order to accommodate the long shipping time they take to arrive in Singapore, which makes strawberries less sweet, said Dr Bao.
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