Malaysia: Michael Simon, the TV producer, taking farming to greater heights
He founded Homegrown Farms in 2017 with his wife, a former journalist, as a way to serve a group of people who want to eat healthy, but can’t seem to afford organic produce.
By Tan Jee Yee
DNA
October 24, 2021
Excerpt:
He began experimenting on different crops and larger systems, too, designing a 20 foot x 20 foot system that allows for paddy to grow aquaponically. As it’s a vertical system, there’s a cavity in the middle that allows farmers to grow mushrooms alongside the paddy.
Michael received his first harvest of paddy in 90 days, which is faster than the 104-day maturing variety he planted. The small plot, Michael claims, has beaten the national average of paddy yield per square foot. If it works as intended, farmers are able to grow paddy alongside mushrooms and harvest fish as they harvest the rice.
“It sounds utopic,” Michael says. “But we’ve done it. We just need to scale it. We’ve done the calculation, and I see that it works. We can change the face of paddy farming in Malaysia.”
It’s a utopia that some are buying in. Homegrown Farms is one of the 2018 Khazanah Nasional Entrepreneurship Outreach (KNEO) programme winners, a feat which Michael notes is a validation of his vision.
