COMMUNITY FARMS
Growing Grassroots

Can't start a garden in your Housing Board flat? Get down to earth with a new form of farming that will help you and your neighbours grow as a community

By LEA WEE

WALK around your neighbourhood these days, and you may just wander into a fruit and vegetable plot.

Welcome to a new genre of farm - the community farm - that has put forth its roots in various corners of the Housing Board heartland in recent years.

The spirit of volunteerism takes root and flourishes at the organic farm at Kampung Senang, as student volunteers discover. -- TREVOR TAN

You may chance upon it while jogging at neighbourhood parks such as Bukit Panjang Park, Yishun Town Garden or Bishan Park.

Or you can find it flourishing in between residential blocks or at schools.

Two are thriving within walking distance from each other - a fruit orchard outside Block 157 in Changi-Simei Zone 3, and a vegetable plot in front of Block 226 in Changi-Simei Zone 4.

Even a day-care centre for the elderly and children in Tampines has taken up the changkol and rooted a plot just outside its premises (see other story).

BACK TO BASICS WITH HDB HARVEST

THESE community farms are often the fruit of the residents' labour and that of their town councils.

While the town councils arrange for the land transfer, land fencing and clearing, the residents deliver the 'software' - the ploughing, planting, watering, weeding and pruning.

The Sembawang Town Council has even engaged a commercial company, Terra Firma Biotechnologies, to provide the necessary training and expertise for residents who are tending to an organic farm in the Bukit Panjang Park.

A group of volunteers from Nee Soon Central Senior Citizen's Club relied solely on their kampung experience to set up a vegetable plot in Yishun Town Park.

So, too, residents of Choa Chu Kang, who have a similar plot outside Block 3 of Teck Whye Avenue.

Mr Chng Yong Par, 66, the chairman of Choa Chu Kang Residents' Committee Zone 1, which is in charge of the project, says: 'It was no problem because we used to grow vegetables in our old kampung.'

Indeed, many residents drop by to lend a hand for nostalgic reasons.

Housewife Madam Hasnah Masnod, 42, says: 'I was really happy to see the banana, sugarcane and jambu ayer growing in the neighbourhood. It reminds me of my kampung days in Bukit Timah.'

And there is nothing sweeter than harvesting and sharing the fruit of their labour with other residents, adds Mr Chng.

He says: 'Farming together has helped to strengthen the community bond.'

But farming is not just for the older generation nostalgic about their past.

To prove this point, elderly volunteers from the Pasir Ris Zone 14 Residents' Committee have been sharing their agricultural skills with students from Siglap Secondary School.

Together with the Pasir Ris Town Council and the Northeast Community Development Council, it arranged for the school to adopt a patch of earth at Pasir Ris Drive 1 to grow greens earlier this year.

For Siglap Secondary student Fabian Tan Zhiyi, 12, the experience has been fun.

She says: 'It was really great to see the first seeds sprout. The elderly even made us drinks from the ribena plants we grew!' (The ribena plant is part of the hibiscus family.)

LIFE LESSONS, HANDS-ON EDUCATION

STUDENTS from Siglap Secondary are not the only ones who are getting their hands dirty and learning where the food on their plates come from.

'We want students to learn how to care for the environment. Organic farming is not only environmentally friendly, but also produces food that is safe for consumption. - Geography teacher Micheline Ong, on Anderson Secondary School's eco-farm project. (above) -- TREVOR TAN

Despite the hype surrounding high-tech hydroponics and aeroponics, some schools such as Northview Primary and Peixin Primary have continued to devote space to low-tech farming.

Anderson Secondary School has gone a step further by doing it the organic way. With the help of Green Circle Eco-Farm owner Evelyn Eng-Lim, students learn how to grow vegetables and herbs in their Ang Mo Kio school compound without using chemical fertilisers or pesticides.

Instead, they use fertilisers made of discarded vegetables and fruit peels from the school canteen and remove any pests by hand.

Says geography teacher Micheline Ong, 43: 'We want students to learn how to care for the environment. Organic farming is not only environmentally friendly, but also produces food that is safe for consumption.'

Student Lee Jun Kiat, 14, says: 'I think none of us expected vegetables to be so hard to come by. Growing them involves so much hard work.'

Other schools which may not have the luxury of space have tapped the resources of the National Parks Board (NParks) to bring the changkol out into neighbourhood parks.

For instance, under the NParks' adopt-a-park programme, four schools - Singapore Chinese Girls' School, Choa Chu Kang, Regent and Unity Secondary schools - have 'adopted' herb and spice gardens in the parks near their schools.

NParks provide the necessary materials, from plant seeds to gardening tools, while the students do the planting, watering and weeding. For that, they get to enjoy the fruit of their labour.

Vegetable farms aside, other schools such as Fuchun Primary in Woodlands even have their own animal farm.

For more than three years, the school has kept a menagerie of rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, roosters and ducks. It also has a fish pond, a terrapin enclave and a mini-aviary.

Students, with the help of teachers, are responsible for taking care of the animals. Recently, after the rabbits gave birth, some children 'adopted' the bunnies. They are in charge of feeding and cuddling them and keeping their cages clean.

Besides nurturing a sense of responsibility in the students, the animal farm has turned out to be an invaluable teaching tool for science teachers, says Fuchun Primary principal, Mrs Constance Yip.

'Learning science has become less abstract. For instance, students can get to see and feel for themselves the difference between the skin covering of a rabbit and a guinea pig.'

With farms like these, it looks like there is hope yet for the urban Singaporean child, who often only knows his animal and plant in the form that they exist on his dinner plate.

Kampung spirit lives on

Kampung Senang runs an organic farm alongside day-care services

Hearty heartlanders in Kampung Senang

On the face of it, Kampung Senang at the void deck of Block 840, Tampines Street 82, may look like just any community day-care centre.

It offers subsidised care for the elderly and children and free medical services for the elderly and sickly poor.

But there is more to it than that. Run by a husband-and-wife team, it tries to marry community work with progressive concerns over the environment and education.

For instance, lunch is plucked literally from the beds of greens growing on soil in the mini-organic farm just outside its premises. The farm shuns chemicals and uses compost made of discarded fruit and vegetables.

Sitting in one corner outside its premises are six recycling bins for aluminium objects, glass bottles and plastic bottles. Plastic bags go into two other baskets.

Madam Joyce Lye, 49, says: 'Over the years, I have realised that what we eat and do have a great impact on the environment.'

Two years ago, she gave up her high-paying job as the general manager of a bank to start the centre as a charitable project with the Northeast Community Development Council and Care for Elderly Foundation.

She was joined by her husband, Mr James Low, 50, a former engineer.

Concerned about the lack of creativity in the educational system, the couple, who have two children, aged 19 and 21, also started a kindergarten for pre-schoolers at the centre.

The education is based on the Warldoff programme founded by German Rudolf Steiner and is also offered to the lower primary children at the day-care centre at a monthly fee of $150 per child.

With four paid staff and monthly expenses of about $15,000, of which 10 per cent is subsidised by the Northeast CDC, the centre relies heavily on volunteers and donations to keep it going.

It runs an active volunteer programme involving secondary school students and juvenile delinquents.

They visit the farm to interact with the elderly or to do a spot of farming. Some go out to neighbourhoods once a month to distribute 'chemical-free' food to the sick elderly or to collect recyclable objects.

Occasionally, they organise ad-hoc donation drives to raise funds for international crises such as the recent earthquakes in El Salvador and India.

The volunteer spirit appears to have caught on.

Residents staying nearby have streamed in, offering to chat with the elderly or to work in the farm or kitchen.

One retiree, who wants to be known only as Madam Chow, drops by once a week to play the harmonica and to sing for the senior citizens.

Indeed, over the last year, this urban kampung has become a veritable gathering place for people of all ages and walks of life.

For the past few months, housewife Alice Ng, 40, has been helping out in the kitchen almost every day while her four-year-old daughter attends the day-care centre.

She says: 'This place is like a second home for me. We are like a big family here.'

For more information, call 785-2568 or e-mail email@kg-senang.org.sg

You can also visit website www.kg-senang.org.sg