The Fish Farmer supplies a diverse selection of fresh and naturally grown fish from their farms, across Singapore. Their products can be found in well-known online and physical retail outlets like NTUC FairPrice, Amazon Fresh, and SGFreshMart.sg, as well as in esteemed restaurants like Elfuego and prominent hotels like PARKROYAL Hotel & Resorts. Among The Fish Farmer’s top-selling items are the naturally cultivated fish varieties such as barramundi, red snapper and milkfish.
At present, The Fish Farmer holds the following certifications:
• Good Aquaculture Practice (GAP) Certification
• Industry Organization for Standardization (ISO) 22000:2018
• Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) & Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) Chain Of Custody Certification
The certificates this business holds demonstrate their commitment to adopting the best practices in quality assurance, safety and sustainability across the entire production cycle of their goods. This makes them the preferred distributor for their customers.
The Fish Farmer’s Efforts in Getting Singapore to Reach its “30 By 30” Goal
As Singapore strives to achieve its goal of producing 30% of its nutritional needs by 2030, The Fish Farmer has been adopting IoT and AI technologies in order to streamline and maximize efficiency in its farming operations to assist Singapore in reaching its 30 By 30 goal.
Low Dissolved Oxygen in The Fish Farmer’s Fish Farms
The Fish Farmer has farms in 2 locations; Lim Chu Kang and Changi. Fish require dissolved oxygen to breathe. If the dissolved oxygen level in water is too low, it will affect the fish. The water quality at their Lim Chu Kang farm experiences significantly lower levels of dissolved oxygen in the water compared to the farm in Changi. The farms low dissolved oxygen levels led to the implementation of water quality monitoring in both locations.
Adopting technology on the farm
To tackle the low dissolved oxygen challenge in both of their farms, The Fish Farmer collaborated with a local IT firm – Metropolitan Wireless International (MWI). Together, they worked on developing, testing, and implementing a water quality monitoring system to remotely monitor dissolved oxygen levels around their farm and its fluctuations throughout the day and night. Additionally, the system alerts the farmers of the decrease in dissolved oxygen, prompting the farmers to activate aerators and pumps to increase the dissolved oxygen levels in the water. This helps to increase productivity in the farm using new technology.
“The quality of the water is not something we can observe with the naked eye. The system has made it much easier for me when it comes to monitoring water quality as I can easily receive alerts for deviation in the water quality, allowing me to take corrective actions and focus on other tasks,” said Soe Pyae Kyaw, The Fish Farmer’s Farm Manager.
Like insurance, the cost of prevention is always lower than the cost of reaction. MWI’s aquaculture system helps The Fish Farmer in terms of its reliability and providing farmers with peace of mind, allowing them to focus on other areas of operations.
Usage of AI in the Farms
On top of using IoT, The Fish Farmer also adopted the use of AI technology, developed by MWI, for both fish counting and estimation of fish weight and length. Before the use of AI on their farms, their farmers relied on manual fish harvest counting, which was time-consuming and labour-intensive. Furthermore, they faced challenges in determining and estimating fish populations in each of their farms. Farmers were also unable to analyze whether the fish were growing healthily based on the fish’s length and weight in the farms.
With AI, the technology helps them to overcome these challenges. The fish can grow without stress during population estimation, and it minimizes their wastage in fish feeding. This can be achieved by accurately estimating the fish population, preventing overfeeding and water pollution. Farmers are now also able to check whether the fish are growing healthily over a period of time.
Through The Fish Farmer’s use of AI, the business is able to contribute to Singapore’s food production by using sustainable methods in its fish farming practices.
Remote Temperature Monitoring for the Integrity and Quality of The Fish Farmer’s Goods
One of The Fish Farmer’s top priorities is to ensure the integrity and quality of its goods, while they are stored in the cold rooms & chillers and during delivery to their valuable customers.
The Fish Farmer previously had a temperature monitoring system from another vendor before implementing their current one. However, the previous system did not have all the features that the business needed to ensure the integrity and quality of goods. If their cold room or freezer doors were unintentionally left open or if similar incidents occurred, it could result in the spoilage of their goods.
With the current temperature monitoring system from MWI, there are a couple of new features that were not available in their previous system.
“The most important reason why MWI’s temperature monitoring system is good is because we receive real-time alerts when temperature is high. It helps us to take immediate action to check and resolve the problem quickly so that we can prevent any damage to equipment or loss of goods. We can also remotely check the real-time temperature data of our cold room and freezers.” said Evonne Chow, The Fish Farmer’s Cold Room Operation Executive.
The use of a temperature monitoring system helps The Fish Farmer maintain the integrity and quality of their goods by storing their goods in optimal temperatures.
By using all these technologies in The Fish Farmer’s operations, they are able to proudly contribute to Singapore’s “30 By 30” goal by supplying quality goods in a sustainable way.