Pig farmers switch to orchids and greens
By Eileen Lau
WHERE have all the pig farmers gone? Gone, it seems, to other types of farming, judging from the experience of five of them.
Pig farms were phased out two years ago. The Straits Times spoke to five ex-pig farmers recently.
One was growing vegetables in Sembawang, another rearing cows in Lim Chu Kang, two more cultivating orchids in Punggol and yet another — believe it or not —running a nine-store supermarket chain.
Since 1985, the Government had been gradually phasing out pig farming which was pollutive due to the animal’s waste. The last of the 22 Punggol farms rearing nearly 300,000 pigs was finally closed down by Nov 1990.
But some of the pig farmers have turned to growing orchids commercially. Two in particular took up high-tech farming courses in Taiwan before setting up their mechanised diary farm and hydroponic vegetable farm, where vegetables are grown in a nutrient-rich solution without soil or pesticides.
This is how five of them are doing in their new businesses:
• Goodbye smells, hello fresh air
Hydroponic vegetable farmer Oh Ah Guan, 42, and his three brothers used to rear 22,000 pigs in Punggol until three years ago.
Now, he is the managing director of Oh Chin Huat Hydroponic Farms at Bah Soon Pah Road in Sembawang. It grows seven types of leafy greens including chye sim, kang kong and pak choy.
His one-hectare family-run farm, about a year old, produces 150 kg of vegetables a day. At the moment, he sells them direct to residents in eight housing estates here, but he plans to sell to restaurants and supermarkets by the end of next year.
At $1.50 per 250g, the hydroponically grown vegetables — said to be crisper and less fibrous — are 15 to 20 per cent dearer than the supermarket variety.
He said in Mandarin: ‘Pig farming was harder because there were a lot more problems when dealing with live animals.
"Of course the working environment for vegetable farming is better. I wake up every morning to greenery and fresh air instead of the smell of pig waste!"
• Growing orchids is hard work too
Orchid growers Teo Soh Wee, 63, and John Holmberg, 53, also used to be pig farmers.
Mr. Holmberg, who had for 14 years raised pigs, now manages Mimy Orchid Gardens in Punggol, owned by an Indonesian. The site, which was a former pig farm, now grows over 10 varieties of orchids where pig sties used to be.
Having grown orchids for about four years now, he said that orchid farming and pig rearing takes as much time and effort.
Mr. Teo’s 19-year-old son, Kim Yong, who helps to run his parents’ 3.5-ha Wendy Florist in Punggol, recalled the switch about 10 years ago:
"My parents were already old and so used to pig farming that the drastic change was difficult."
•
Moving on to milking cowsHigh-tech dairy farmer Lim Thian Joo, 34, and his three brothers and cousins used to own two pig farms with 10,000 animals in Punggol six years ago.
He now helps to run the 2.5-hectare family-owned Chin Soon Farm, located at the agrotechnology park off Lim Chu Kang Road. It started operating in 1990.
Using a mechanised milking system, its 55 milking cows produce 850 litres of milk a day, sold at $4 a bottle. Mr. Lim said it cost between $1.2 million and $13 million to start his new business.
• More worries with a supermart
Supermarket chain director H. C. Tan, 41, started the first of nine Prime Supermarkets in 1984, when he first heard that pig farms were to be phased out.
He used to own the Tan Chye Huat pig farm in Punggol, with four brothers and cousins. The farm had 45,000 pigs at its peak.
Explaining the switch, he said: "Since we were agriculture-based — we also dealt in fish and vegetables — running a supermarket was close to what we are familiar with."
But he added that there was more competition and therefore more pressure in the supermarket business compared to pig farming.
"When I was a pig farmer, I had no worries. Every day, I would feed the pigs, give them medicine, and at the end of the day, sell them. Now, I worry about the competition, the customers, and market surveys," he said.
As for the other former pig farmers who did not go into other businesses, Mr. Oh from the hydroponic farm said that most of them had retired as they were quite elderly.
Mr Tan added that some of them had gone to Johor either to continue pig farming or to switch to vegetable or poultry farming.
He said: "During the phasing out, around ‘85 and ‘86, land and houses in Malaysia were so cheap! One acre of land then was about M$6,000 (S$3,840) to M$8,000."
Source : The Straits Times, June 17 1992
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