The Perils Of Boutique Organic Farming

Fabian Liao of Quan Fa Organic Farm talks about how fragile national food security can be and how supply chains have been disrupted because of the ongoing global pandemic.

- Priyanka Elhence

Quan Fa Organic Farm’s history dates back to the late 1990s, when founder Liao Chuan Huat first started running it as a conventional vegetable garden, before the work of farmers in Japan and Taiwan convinced him to switch to using more agrarian farming methods.

Established in 1999, it has grown from being a small organic vegetable retailer to one of Singapore’s leading organic fruits and vegetable suppliers and distributors today. The farm is run by the Liao family, including his son, Liao Jun Jie, and nephew, Fabian Liao, who handles most of the demanding operations these days.

With land being a scarcity in Singapore, they had started out in Lorong Serambi but later moved to a more spacious two-hectare plot in Murai Agrotechnology Park when the government took the land back for military purposes. At their second location, they were one of Singapore’s largest organic farm then.

His uncle quickly mastered the Takakura Composting Method, developed by Koji Takakura, where microorganisms from fermented foods such as natto and yoghurt help break down organic waste. The microorganisms are fed with sugar water to grow and multiply, which helps speed up the composting and produces a fermentation liquid.

“The Takakura method sits at the core of how we grow our produce without the use of any chemicals, pesticides or harmful fertilisers,” says Fabian.