How agriculture is blooming in Singapore

[S.Annadana]

How agriculture is blooming in Singapore

Singapore is the world's most advanced city state, with its impeccable buildings, tidy roads and fully-automated traffic system. Agriculture is practically non-existent in Singapore. But surprisingly it is in Singapore that the largest number of agri-funds get floated. So when the whole world is worried about rising foodgrain prices, several investment funds have found it an opportunity to float agri-funds in Singapore.

Some of those hot funds include BNP Paribas Agriculture Fund, Barclays Global Agriculture Delta Fund, Citrine Agriculture Booster Notes and Castlestone Aliquot Agriculture Fund. Why is it that Singapore is suddenly the hub for agri-funds? Whom should the answer come from, other than Jim Rogers, the commodities investing legend, who is now settled in Singapore.

“Equity market is down. And companies in Asia based in Singapore are looking to countries like China and India and launching agri-funds to tap the Asian potential,” says the billionaire investor. Agriculture plays are the 'most promising area of the commodities sector', and the 'bull run could last for 10 years', claimed Rogers. Talking of Jim Rogers, it is fascinating to meet the man.

So when I met him at his Tree Top Apartment, where the top executives of Singapore have homes, he was in his best of moods. “Come with me to the bicycle,” he says as we move to the gym where he cycles, reads a commodity magazine and talks to me on commodities. “I am always filled with commodities. I am passionate about commodities.” But why, he is so focused only on commodities. “You know commodity is a thing of reality. I love realities,” he adds.

Bollywood Veggie Farm & Poison Ivy Restaurant
Everyone thinks that the small strip of land called Singapore is a modern city with hi-fi buildings and agriculture land. You are mistaken. Just drive 10 km in the outskirts of the city to the Malaysia boarder. “One third of Singapore is farm-land. There are several hectares of organic farming there,” my friend tells and takes me to one such farm. It is great greenery, and the farm is named Bollywood Veggie Farm! I am aghast.

A Bollywood farm in Singapore? Yes, indeed. Meet Mrs Ivy Singh-Lim, whose Indian father was one of the richest landlords in Singapore. “I am half Indian and half Chinese. That is why I have this strange name Singh-Lim,” says the 59-year-old lady. Singh-Lim is today Singapore's best known organic farmer. She and her husband Lim Ho Seng have leased land on the Lim Chu Kang Agrotechnology Park where they have established two integrated businesses.

One is Bollywood Veggie Farm and the other is the Poison Ivy Restaurant. The 10-acre farm is truly rural, where they cultivate anything like banana, papaya, lady fingers, egg plant, chillies and beans bananas to peas to carrots. The farm on the edge of Singapore is an organic enterprise worth visiting. And the restaurant that Singh-Lim runs Poison Ivy Restaurant uses the herbs and produce that are grown on the farm. The proud Bollywood Veggie Farm owner has bonded with several farm families in Singapore to form the Kranji Countryside Association. •

This article appeared in COMMODITY MARKET, India’s No 1 news magazine on commodities.