Abstract

In 2017, the Singaporean government unveiled the Farm Transformation Map, a highly technology-driven initiative that intends to change its current, near-total dependence on imported food. The plan focuses on the prospect of high-productivity farming—in particular, integrated vertical, indoor, and intensive urban farming—as a possible solution to geopolitical uncertainty, intense urbanisation, and environmental degradation. What to farm (or not) and how to farm has long mediated social, cultural, political, and environmental relations. Following the stories of a few small- to medium-scale urban farms, including rooftop gardens, community farms, and organic farms, in this future-oriented city polis, this article explores the rise of urban farming through the politics of localism and the notion of care. How has localism, in some contexts, been reduced to a narrow sense of geographic location? What is being cared for in and through farming in urban locales? How might this type of farming transform and shape bio-cultural, social-technological relations within humans, and between humans and non-humans? More importantly, this article explores how urban agriculture might forge a kind of thick localism rooted in situated care as it carries out social missions, experimenting with and subverting the dominant imaginary of industrial farming.

Highlights

  • I started my journey into Singapore walking in a garden, a City in a Garden

  • I had meals in various farm-totable restaurants proudly featuring their locally sourced produce, something of a novelty in the island city polis, a global financial centre that imports 90 percent of its food. It was not until I met Darren Tan, the head of education of Comcrop farm, and he brought me to the roof of a shopping complex on Orchard Road, that I realised that here, “local” means blocks away

  • Unlike the usual colour composition of dark brown soil juxtaposed with green vegetables seen on farms, the hues here were cleaner and more metallic

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Summary

Introduction

I started my journey into Singapore walking in a garden, a City in a Garden. Little did I know that inside this controlled and manicured environment, other things were sprouting—. I had meals in various farm-totable restaurants proudly featuring their locally sourced produce, something of a novelty in the island city polis, a global financial centre that imports 90 percent of its food It was not until I met Darren Tan, the head of education of Comcrop farm, and he brought me to the roof of a shopping complex on Orchard Road (the renowned mall-lined street in Singapore), that I realised that here, “local” means blocks away. This article is not a general review of urban agriculture or alternative food networks which include, but are not limited to, rooftop farming, community gardening, guerrilla farming, and vertical farming.. This article is not a general review of urban agriculture or alternative food networks which include, but are not limited to, rooftop farming, community gardening, guerrilla farming, and vertical farming.1 Rather, it focuses on the stories of a few small- to medium-scale urban farms in Singapore, which is globally one of the most urbanised areas. Farms are understood as carrying out social missions, experimenting with and subverting the dominant imaginary of industrial farming

Where Is Your Food From?
Who Do You Care For?
Findings
What Future Are You Growing?
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