The pandemic bore many woes. From restricting human movement to disrupting supply chains; the world came to a grinding halt.
For a group of farmers in Brunei however, the global slump was no reason to withdraw. Instead, it became a platform for progress; as they continued to push the envelope of sustainable farming through smart technology.
Superfish Growers is one of many greenhouses in the Sultanate that practicing vertical farming. What sets them apart is that these farmers are practicing Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) and their crop of choice? Strawberries.
Strawberries are a cool weather crop with a temperature requirement between 10 to 27 degrees Celsius which is lower than Brunei’s average daily temperature.
“We chose strawberries as it is a weather sensitive fruit. It is not ideal to grow them in our weather with conventional farming methods, or even simply growing it vertically in a greenhouse, and hydroponics for that matter,” explained Co-Founder and Research & Development Lead Lee Wei Sheng.
Light-emitting diode grow lights are also utilised in their vertical greenhouses, added the Malaysian-born Brunei resident, allowing crops to be grown indoors, used in place of sunlight which is an essential factor that can determine the taste and sweetness of the strawberries.
By utilising an LED light spectrum recipe – a set of instructions for lighting tailored for specific crops and conditions to achieve the best results – and temperature control, Lee and his team of farmers can essentially grow anything at any time and influence not only the size of the crop, but also its flavour and sugar content.
According to co-founder and Operations & IT Lead Foo Gwen Tong, these two innovations work hand in hand with their Internet of Things (IoT) sensors which help monitor the temperature, carbon dioxide as well as the humidity level of the vertical greenhouse, allowing for direct adjustments in environmental parameters to establish the best growing conditions for strawberries.
Despite the extensive use of smart agrotechnology, there are still aspects of farming requiring a human touch, added Foo.
Touching on the conventional aspects of cultivating strawberries, Foo explained that the process begins when the seedlings arrive from the breeders, where they are immediately placed into bags of coco peat.
A drip irrigation system waters the seedlings daily and after two months, the seedlings will begin their vegetative phase where flowers start to emerge. The flowers are currently hand-pollinated, but in the near future, bees may be used within the facility to perform this essential step, he added.
“About five months later, the strawberries will enter its fruiting period (and) ultimately, with this technology, we will be able to cultivate 700 times more plants than a conventional farm,” Foo said.
Head of Business Development Nur Hazel Lim said unlike conventional forms of vertical or hydroponic farming, they have developed this technology as a means to breach the export market even further through high-value produce.
“When the pandemic hit and complicated our imports, while (also) noting that strawberries and such other fruits are not able to be grown here, we thought of this technology to grow high-value crops like strawberries instead of concentrating on leafy vegetables which have much simpler requirements,” she reiterated.
Buoyed by the potential opportunities of smart agrotechnology application, the team is already looking at opportunities beyond the Sultanate’s coastlines, hoping to patent their own custom light recipe and market it alongside the design of their smart vertical greenhouse.
“This way we can grow things more sustainably with less land and with the technology being able to be exported means that it (the group’s smart vertical greenhouse concept) can be built anywhere,” she said. – Rizal Faisal
