Singapore’s agri-tech grow fresher food, boost food security

That dish of steamed barramundi and plate of stir-fried xiao bai cai on your dinner table have more in common than you think.

For both to taste their best, they have to be grown under carefully controlled, low-stress conditions. In Singapore, where land is scarce and climate pressures are real, that increasingly means relying on smart technology.

Home-grown producers such as

have moved beyond traditional farming methods. Sensors, automation and data systems now underpin how they monitor fish health, regulate crop growing conditions and reduce risk for consistent, high-quality produce.

Step inside these farms to see how agritech is contributing to a more resilient food future for Singapore.

Off the Pasir Ris coast,

operates four floating fish farms, each about 2,000 sqm, housing more than 60 fish tanks in total filled with barramundi, grouper and red snapper.

According to chief executive officer Dirk Eichelberger, SAT’s operations rely on an extensive network of sensors, alarms and analytics driven by artificial intelligence (AI).

These tools monitor key factors that affect fish health — from water flow, oxygen and pH levels to harmful bacteria, viruses and parasites. When any of these fall outside safe ranges, stress hormones such as cortisol rise, affecting the fish’s colour, texture, fat content and taste.

But the risks go beyond quality. Fish have immune systems similar to humans, and stress makes them far more susceptible to disease — a serious concern in high-density tanks where infections can spread quickly.

“A wipe-out of the entire farm would mean bankruptcy,” says Dr Eichelberger.

To manage these risks, the farm relies on measuring tools linked to a cloud-based data system that records environmental, process and output data, allowing the team to analyse short- and long-term trends.

In one instance, the team believed their tank density, meaning the total biomass of fishes in one tank, was within acceptable limits. But cortisol measurements revealed the fish were already experiencing stress.

“We had certain assumptions but these were assumptions. If you don’t have the information, you can only work with experience, guesswork and trial and error,” says Dr Eichelberger. 

Automated systems now continuously regulate oxygen levels, while alarms are triggered if water flow or levels dip below safe thresholds, alerting full-time staff who live on the farms.

The importance of such safeguards was driven home in 2015, when a pump failure in the middle of the night led to the loss of more than 20,000 fish — a painful and costly incident the team has never forgotten.

“It was a huge shock but it changed how we operate. We rebuilt our systems to ensure real-time monitoring of water flow and oxygen, automated dosing, and multiple layers of alarms and backups,” says Dr Eichelberger.

He describes fish farming as a complex endeavour between biology, chemistry and many other factors. “Technology helps us to understand this complexity.”

At hydroponics greenhouse farm

, which spans 2ha, director Dave Huang recalls a time when his farm had to discard 40 baskets of vegetables every day for 10 to 15 days. The shade curtain was not working and the sun got too hot.

“It is part and parcel of learning. Once you experience this, you ask yourself what you should do to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he says.

Like Dr Eichelberger, Mr Huang believes in keeping his produce “happy”. They are fed a well-balanced nutrient mix and sea kelp extracts “to help them handle stress better”. The result: crunchier, better-tasting greens.

Green Harvest is a joint venture between Kok Fah Technology Farm — where Mr Huang is a fourth-generation farmer — and Teambuild Construction Group. Before he came on board, the farm relied on soil-based cultivation. Mr Huang decided to raise the level of automation, transitioning to hydroponics to achieve more consistent harvests and grow larger, healthier plants.

That transformation began with the design of the farm itself, which became operational in 2023. The two-storey integrated greenhouse houses offices, packing facilities and cold rooms on the ground floor.

The crops are cultivated on the second level. Here is where the tech magic happens. Under the vast glass roof, vegetables grow on automated tracks within a mobile gully system that comprises 14 production lines. Each production line spans 130m in length and consists of between 1000 and 1200 gulleys, with each gully measuring 8m in length, gliding through the greenhouse and adjusting plant spacing as crops grow.

With this, Green Harvest needs just six staff on the harvesting team while four others handle the transplanting of crops in various growth stages. This frees up manpower, creates a faster workflow process and makes farming safer and less strenuous as it reduces the need for heavy lifting and repetitive bending. When ready to be harvested and packed, the plants are transported to the farm’s first level automatically.

Says Mr Huang: “The farmers don’t go to the plants, the plants go to them, and this makes farming a more sustainable job.”

Although the greenhouse design relies mostly on natural sunlight for now, climate sensors control the temperature, activating cooling pads and a shade curtain when it’s too warm. As plants don’t like still, humid air, 87 huge high-powered fans improve airflow.

“If these are turned on ‘blindly’ at full speed, it is not energy efficient so sensors adjust the fan speeds accordingly,” he says.

Running a smart greenhouse also means hiring differently. Mr Huang says he now looks for talent with technical expertise and engineering backgrounds.

His advice to aspiring farmers: start with the problem and not the technology, and be clear about what you are trying to improve, whether it is manpower issues, quality of produce or operational costs. 

“Technology can only work well when your team can operate it consistently every day,” adds Mr Huang.

Food security as a shared effort

Mr Huang credits the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) for playing a key role in Green Harvest’s progress, providing both technical advice and partial funding support through the Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund. Under this fund, SFA provides co-funding for local farms to adopt technologies.

Beyond this, SFA also drives innovation through its Singapore Food Story R&D Programme, which funds research projects with the potential to transform food production and enhance food security.

According to SFA, growing local produce is one of the four pillars of the Singapore Food Story 2, the nation’s refreshed food resilience strategy aimed at ensuring it maintains a stable supply of safe food. The other three pillars are diversifying import sources, stockpiling and strengthening global partnerships.

For a land-scare country that imports over 90 per cent of its food, this multi-pronged strategy is important, says SFA. It helps ensure a more reliable food supply during disruptions from climate change, disease outbreaks, supply chain shocks, and geopolitical developments.

To boost local production, SFA supports farms in adopting technologies suited to their needs — from automated feeding, harvesting and packing systems to climate-controlled irrigation, water quality monitoring and hatchery automation for fish fingerlings.

Last year, SFA facilitated SAT’s collaboration with NUS to develop a wastewater treatment system which can remove approximately 80 per cent of nitrogenous fish waste. It also gives SAT the opportunity to reuse the treated water and turn the solid waste into fertiliser products.

For SAT and Green Harvest, AI and technology are management tools to help farmers make decisions and facilitate jobs but do not replace them.

“Data is analysed and visualised fast with technology but the decision needs to be made by humans. The human brain, hand and eye still make the difference,” adds Dr Eichelberger.

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