Greenhouse gases (GHG) like Carbon Dioxide are produced at every stage of food production – during transportation, packaging, and disposal. Singapore relies heavily on other countries for food. This, coupled with the food waste generated by Singaporeans consequently increase Singapore's GHG emissions significantly.
To reduce our carbon emissions by reducing reliance on imports, the Singapore Food Agency rolled out the “Singapore 30 by 30” plan to encourage Singaporeans to grow their own produce at home or in an allotment garden. However, having interviewed the Deputy Director of NParks, we learnt that the current balloting system for allotment gardens is inefficient. Consequently, fewer people are enticed to grow their own produce, impeding efforts toward increased local food production and ultimately our climate change goals.
Our web application, OurGardenStory, aims to provide users with a comprehensive solution to ballot for allotment gardens, manage their plants, and connect with like-minded people. This encourages Singaporeans to grow more food and play a part in combating climate change.
The process of balloting and onboarding of the allotment garden program is slow for NParks, and not transparent for the bidders. Bidders have voiced their concerns about the fairness of the balloting process as living in close proximity to allotment gardens does not entail a higher chance of success. NParks have also mentioned that their management of applicants and their information is manual and inefficient.
We can solve these issues through our solution, by automating the bidding process,
facilitating payment and communication between NParks and the allotment gardeners. Our
bidding algorithm will take into account the geolocation of allotment gardens in relation
to the residential address of applicants. Also, educating people through OurGardenStory will
build a greener community that promotes healthy gardening practices, especially for people
that are inexperienced in gardening. Our solution will be impactful in helping Singapore be
more self-reliant on food production and reduce GHG emissions.
- Ballot for an allotment garden
- Payment after the successful ballot
- Track the status of your allotment garden application, both on the application as well as through email updates
- Plant encyclopedia to track the plants that we are currently planting and the details of each plant
- Community page able to connect with other garden users within your community garden