How Singapore is turning multi-storey car parks into farms

Eyleen Goh runs a farm from the top deck of a car park in Singapore.

And this is not a small operation – it supplies nearby retailers with up to 400kg of vegetables a day, she says.

“Singapore is quite small but we have many car parks. It is pretty much the dream to have farms [here] to meet the needs of residents in the community,” she says.

At least a dozen of these rooftop farms have now sprouted up across the South East Asian city state.

The government started leasing out the unusual plots in 2020 as part of its plans to increase local food production. The country of 5.5m people currently imports more than 90% of its food.

But space in this densely populated island nation is scarce and that means land is not cheap. Singapore has some of the world’s most expensive property.

One farmer told the BBC that the high cost of his first car park plot meant that he had to give it up and move to a cheaper location.

When BBC News visited Ms Goh’s farm, which is about the third of the size of a football field, operations were in full swing.

Workers were picking, trimming and packing choy sum, a leafy green vegetable used in Chinese cooking.

At the other end of the facility meanwhile, another employee was busy re-potting seedlings.