Meet Bjorn, an urban farmer and the co-founder of Edible Garden City, a social enterprise that aims to bring people closer to nature. Through his urban farms, Bjorn hopes to not only benefit the environment, but the community too – providing employment to beneficiaries and connecting people through rooftop gardening.
Learn more about Bjorn’s story and what inspires him to Reach for Great everyday
What inspired you to pursue urban farming?
I really wanted to do something different and impactful plus, growing food was something I was very curious about. I never had the opportunity to engage in farms and grow my own food, and that was something I really wanted to explore in the next stage of my life and career. So, I went to work on all the different small organic farms and found that there was a way to actually live with resources sparingly. Since then, my journey has been the last ten years of working on small organic farms, trying to adapt the model into Singapore, a highly dense city, and then trying to bring social impact, community engagement and environmental impact through the urban farms.
“‘Great’ to me is having empathy for the people, animals and plants around you, so that we can create a more sustainable and equitable society.”
How do you Reach for Great every day?
What helps me Reach for Great is going to my garden first thing in the morning. There I look at my plants, touch them, connect with them and that really sets me up to work towards what I want to achieve, which is to convert the urban landscapes into full production zones on the rooftops, and in all underutilised spaces in the city.
What kind of change do you hope to see in the future?
The change that I would like to see, with what we do in urban farming, is to create a sustainable and viable model which lets us produce food in the city center, provide employment to beneficiaries and create environmental impact in all spaces that we operate in. It’s also my personal dream that our urban farms can bring therapeutic benefits to society, so that we’re not only feeding people but are also taking care of the community from a health standpoint.
Singapore
Malaysia
Indonesia
Brunei
Myanmar
