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Singapore: This 24-year-old built an agtech startup that delivers freshly harvested produce to S’poreans

More small farms in Singapore — out of 77 local leafy vegetable farms in 2019, 25 were indoor, and two were rooftop farms.

By Lynzie Montague
News Akmi
Sept 14, 2021

Excerpt:

The 24-year-old founder and CEO of Urban Tiller, Jolene Lum, left her corporate job in February 2020.

She joined an education technology startup where she worked on food and agriculture in Singapore, and started building a network in the industry. There, she explored the history and landscape of local farming, and hoped to eventually cultivate a new part of it.

Jolene Lum, founder and CEO of Urban Tiller (left) with Sumona, COO (right) / Image Credit: Urban Tiller
Jolene then explored the idea of food security with the concept of nutritional security. Through research, the Urban Tiller team found that leafy greens like baby spinach would lose up to 90 per cent of nutritional value just 24 hours from harvest.

Therefore, Urban Tiller set out to make nutritious crops accessible, and provide city dwellers with on-demand freshness.

They went on to create a new business model for local smallholder farmers running small to mid-sized farms, since traditional supply chains in urban supermarkets might not work for them.

The complex procurement process requires large volumes and consistency, which only works for a consignment model. However, this means that farmers do not get paid for all the produce sent to supermarkets.

For example, farmers might need to send 10 kilograms of produce, but only get paid for two kilograms, if that’s how much gets sold. Unsold produce is no longer fresh or sellable, and constitutes to wastage.

Read the complete article here.