My primary school teacher used to say that to our class. "Change is the only constant in life."

I find it true to a great extent,as seen from our visits to the organic farm,hydroponic farm and the museum.Change brought these places to where they are today.The organic farm, for example,is an example.Due to the advancement of research in the area of Science, many things have been invented to serve the needs of the consumers (in terms of farming),such as insecticides/pesticides, machinery, artificial fertilisers and such.

Personally,I feel that I have gained a lot of insight into organic farming during the visit.The farm was set up by a retired old couple, who reckon that technology have been overused,to such an extent that it is harming us more than it is benefitting us. The old couple provided a lot of information regarding the methods they use for organic farming,how they manage their business financially and advancements in farming methods all around the world. Their farm was very interesting.Due to the fact that they are practising organic farming,they have to follow the 4 principles by IFOAM( International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements http://www.ifoam.org/).

The farm has an interesting water system too.When it rains, the rainwater washes some nutrients from the soil (no pesticides and insectices,they don't use it) into a pond,within their own farm,which is filled with water hyacins (unsure of spelling).These plants multiply very quickly and can absorb some of the "nasty stuff" ( as quoted from the old lady.She said the stuff was too difficult for us to understand) from the water,which is then sent up to a little pump which pumps the water back all around the farm to sprinklers,which is then switched on and sends water to the plants. Since the water hyacins multiplied so quicky,they were,together with weeds,made into compost,which acts as fertilisers for the plants.

Another interesting thing is that the couple practise crop rotation and biodiversity in their farm.When we entered the farm,we were surprised by the messy state it in.Plants grew almost everywhere,not the usual image of farms we have where plants were plotted in neat rows.Of course,there was still a sense of organisation in it.Some small areas were allotted for different specific crops.The couple said that to counter pests,they relied on the multiplication of predators(since they don't use pesticides/insecticides).So having a biodiversity of everything sort of balances nature,to ensure healthy and high quality crops.(Most of their green leafy crops had holes in the leaves.The lady said it was healthy and alright,as a leaf without holes was probably sprayed with insecticide or pesticide.) Another way they countered pests,was crop rotation. For example,if they planted sweet corn on plot A this time and lettuce on plot Z, sweet corn would be planted on plot Z and lettuce on plot A the next time. On the first time, there would probably be many ants living on plot A and fed on it once it grew up.So on the second time,the farmer would plant sweet corn at the other end of the farm,where no ants probably lived,so by the time the ants moved house over to plot Z,the sweet corn would have probably been harvested.Isn't that cool?

Alright that's all for now.I can't remember much from the hydroponics farm nor the museum,except that the hydroponics farm tour was too brief and that we had not enough time at the musuem.I liked the design and technology at the museum though.The Companion was quit cool and the building design was appealing to me.I'll let my other friends tell you more about the other 2 locations we visited.(Water Polo people didn't visit the zoo on Wednesday,we had a match).

Tay Zhi Yuan :)

heavenknows

11:44 PM