Food security and accessibility is the drive at the heart of our farms. With the increasing demand to sustain our dietary needs, XFarms and urban farming is made to do more with less. The main idea is to bring together urban farming professionals, young talents, startups and industry partners to create transformative solutions for food and agritech.
At XFarms, we are conscious of our role as a food producer, and have taken the steps to practice the following initiatives at our farm:
Zero use of chemical pesticides
All our vegetables are grown hydroponically. This eliminates the risk of soil contamination and degradation. In addition, we grow our vegetables in controlled environments without any pesticides. Pests are controlled by imposing strict farm SOPs through limiting visitors from entering the farm and only applying certified natural/organic repellents.
Same-day harvest
All vegetables are timed to be harvested at the peak of their maturity, early in the morning and delivered to our consumers by noon on the same day. This is to ensure minimal nutrient loss from farm to fork.
Smart technology-driven
All our farms are optimized by smart technologies using IoT sensors, artificial intelligence and data analytics to produce high quality vegetables. It also helps minimize farm wastage through more precise forecasting based on various internal and external factors such as weather patterns.
Zero-waste policy
We recycle all of our farm waste and vegetable scraps to feed the fish in our aquaponics farms, and have compost bins surrounding the landscape at Sunway FutureX.
Mindful packaging
We strictly avoid single-use plastics for our packaging. Our weekly harvest is delivered in biodegradable paper bags and our microgreens are packed in compostable bamboo containers produced by a local partner, Circlepac.
Reduced food miles
We build farms in underutilized city space. This allows us to supply vegetables to communities living up to a 25km radius, and we aim to reduce it to 10-15km within the next 5 years by building more decentralized farms across cities. This will further reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation while delivering vegetables with a higher nutrition content to our consumers.
Gentle to the Planet
In comparison to traditional farming, both hydroponic and aquaponic farming methods use 90% less water while vertical farming can produce up to 40% more yield per square feet. This alongside soil-less farming
Taking one small step at a time
To create a sustainable food system, concerted effort from multi-stakeholders is required. As individuals, we have the power to influence producers and policymakers alike to take bold actions. Let’s do our part by being more aware of our daily food choices by making small swaps each day.
Together, we can make a difference! Also, don’t forget to check out our urban farming workshops!
This article first appeared on the Sunway iLabs blog
