1. What thoughts do you have during the learning journey?

2. What ideas or messages do I think this place or experience is trying to show?

3. How might different school subjects help me better understand what I saw?

1.       Understand the economic aspects of sustainable agriculture, including factors affecting production costs and the role of innovation in the industry.

2.       Gain better understanding about food security and how urban farming in Singapore allow local production of food to meet 30% of our nutritional need. (30-by-30 plan)

3.       Explore the economic principles behind pricing, ethical food production, and the market for locally grown produce.

4.       Engage with experts at ComCrop Singapore to gain insights into the challenges and opportunities in urban agriculture and the sustainable food industry.

1. What did I notice?

2. What are some things, people or places I observed during this journey?

3. What stood out to me or caught my attention?

1. How does this affect me? How can I explore this further?

1. What can we/I do about it? What should we/I do about it?

Pre-learning Journey : Let’s Anticipate & Explore

• What do you know or wonder about the place/topic you will be exploring, and why might it be important to Singapore’s future?

During the Learning Journey :  Making Career connection

• What are some of the interesting roles did you observe, and what skills or personal attributes are needed in those careers?

Post – Learning Journey : Reflect & Connect

• What new insights did you gain about the people, systems, or challenges you saw?

• What role might you be interested to play in contributing to this space in the future? List one practical step you can take toward this interest (e.g., talk to someone in the field, take a related course, start a project, volunteer, etc.)

Importance to SG: sets a precedent for sustainable local produce to ensure food security in SG, can dictate changes in urban planning in terms of agriculture (areas set aside for farming, innovation in housing etc)

Not many workers around, since it is mostly automated other than quality checking

What stood out to me is the different considerations to make the plants grow most effectively

2. I observed a lot of plants in their different stages of growth around the place

3. The greenhouses are very long and big which is not very common to see in singapore

It definitely shows that in order to make something effective, a lot of research is required to ensure top quality

There is definitely a lot of STEAM related fields related to the farm, such as environment and automation

Things that stood out: smell was pretty bearable, the entire operation was surprising compact

The people I noticed where mostly the quality assurance and quality control members who were meticulous in their inspection of the vegetables to ensure that the consumers enjoy vegetables that are the cream of the crop(pun intended)

What specifically stood out to me was how much thought went into much thighs went into the marketing and sales of the product. Bring grown in Singapore and having a high state of technology, they would need to charge a premium price so that they are able lo still make a profit. As such they considered all aspects of marketing to ensure that maximum sales were achieved, for instance the packaging of the product, the weight of the product and how each package differs from different supermarket chains.

When I was taking part time for Fairprice, I saw a section of the store dedicated to the local produce, which is interesting as SG is promoting the 30-30 goal for local produce. I did know that there were multiple types of farms existing in Singapore, such as Nippon Koi Farm (From the TDD LJ), but I was not sure how they get from there to the stores, let alone if they are fresh or not.

During

Visiting Comcrop was a lot more different as I was expecting, as it was a rooftop "garden" with hardly much manpower at all, due to the high level of automations for growing the plants.

After

Definitely a worthwhile tour on how innovative these farms are, and it goes to show that creativity can make for high-effective work.

As for roles, I would support the use of local produce in stores whenever it comes by. Maybe a bit of volunteerism may help too.

Research good ph levels and nutrients for different species of plants

2. I think this place is trying to show that it is important to incorporate the latest technology into the production of crops to make them more efficient

3. Studying econs helped me understand why they did certain things that can make the process more efficient and less prone to error while also being competitive in the Singapore market for vegetables. Like using a computer to automate the daily management of tasks like watering and maintaining the conditions in the greenhouse

I think the message that this experience was trying to show was that it’s actually possible to accomplish goals if we have the innovative ability and think outside the box. With a country as small as Singapore with such limited land resource, we need to think outside the box and get creative with our solutions to solve the modern day problems.

Subjects such as economics could possibly explain why the comcrop company has put so much thought and effort into marketing their products. For example, since the market Singapore based is small and niche, the overall demand is lower. Paired together with the higher prices as compared to imported goods from other countries, they try their best to make their products look as attractive as possible to induce a favourable change in taste and preference and cause the demand for their goods to shift to the right, and assuming PED is greater than one since its a niche market, revenue increases as revenue=PxQ

2. One role I observed is the Quality assurance and Quality check role where workers assess the vegetables for any imperfections before they are packaged. A skill that may be important for this job would be an eye for detail or precision to ensure the vegetables are of consistent desirable quality.

3. It is hard to completely control how the vegetables will grow/react to different climates in Singapore even if it is in a highly controlled environment

4. Support similar initiatives by either donating or buying their produce

What I can do is to try growing some of my own vegetables too and exploring the ways that we are building our food security

I wondered what kind of technology(hydroponics, aquaponics, vertical farming) the company uses among the many other similar companies and what differentiates them from the rest.

During the learning journey:

I noticed that most of the crucial roles were handled by the farming manager such as controlling the master computer and deciding the number of plants to harvest in a day. In order to operate the master computer, I believe that one would need to be very comfortable with technology and adept with programming skills and software, for example programming what time the machine triggers the release of the nutrients to the plant. I also think they the farming manager must be proficient and knowledgeable enough about different plants. Some plants thrive under certain conditions such as pH and temperature and the farm manager needs to be aware of such vital details and change the conditions of the farm house accordingly to ensure optimum growth.

Post-learning journey:

I noticed how some of the challenges that the company faced was the harsh weather conditions in Singapore. Being in such a hot and humid country, some of the plants may lose its turgidity due to the large amounts of water vapour in the air and this causes the plant to wilt and some of them have leaves that start to brown. This made me wonder why the master computer didn’t notice that some of the plants needed more water than usual based on the weather. I concluded that this could be because the growth of majority of the plants were more important as compared to the growth of the few plants. The plants could have also died based on other conditions so the exact cause for the unhealthy appearance is inconclusive.

I am interested in how the master computer was designed to take into account all aspects needed for germination and growth. Is the data collected from an app or do they use the real time data collected from the wind gauge? And how exactly does the computer know how to use the real time data? One step I could take is learning how to code us in different coding languages such as python and JavaScript. There are many apps and YouTube videos online that show one how to code.

During the learning journey, I was surprised at the little manpower on site as many operations were digitalized, however, the worker there were still very dedicated to producing high quality fresh produce to the community , which is something to admire. They also are very detailed in their work, which is something that I can learn from them as well.

I feel that this learning journey has helped me better understand how technology can help us to make this process more efficient, that every methodology has its pros and cons, and we should not be discouraged and continue to experiment with methods to improve our work, which is something I learnt today. For roles, I will start to encourage more people to support these local farms and maybe volunteer in related projects if given the opportunity.

2. there were not that many workers around and the layout of the farm was very interesting

3. how they have to package their produce differently based on the buyer

2. i think it is trying to show how even though Singapore isn't the ideal country to grow these crops it is still possible

3. i think geog, chem and bio would be helpful

• I only knew about the vertical farming method when it comes to urban farming, but now Im aware there are also hydroponics and aquaponics. All these methods are very efficient in developing plants, which contributes to our food security.

• There is a farm manager who oversees everything in the urban farm, which requires critical thinking when problems arise and has to be resolved as soon as possible.

• Even though the systems are very advanced and efficient, there are still plants that wilt due to the area having unsuitable environmental conditions for them to thrive.

• I might be interested in volunteering and helping around with the planting and packaging processes. One realistic step I can take is to email them to ask for their availability.

2) I noticed how the hydrophonic system used to grow the crops

3) it stood out to me the reasoning why aquaphonics isn't used but hydrophonic is used instead -

2) It promotes sustainability in terms of technological sustainability, environmental sustainability etc

3) economics can be useful in explaining how this can lead to sustainable growth and geography can be useful in telling me the reasoning behind all these efforts -

• to ensure water to flow down

• air circulation

qc&qa:

• to ensure the quality

• appearance for sale

using of cocopeat instead of soil:

• to prevent insects

• control the nutrition

Ideas/Messages: They want to show that science can help us to adapt to growing needs and some ideas and be realised with enough innovation and perseverance.

Related subjects: Sciences and math can help with the more technical part of maintaining and building the farm, econs can help to make it economically sustainable and profitable, GP can understand the context in which why the farm is as it is, differing audiences for the farm and how to meet their needs

Insights: Althought automated, physical on site labourers are still needed. It is a very tight operation and there is minimal room for error owing to how it's related to agriculture. Yield can very due to variable weather conditions.

Roles I might play: I could advocate for the support of such local buisnesses