When Ideas Bear Fruit

When Dr Bao Shengjie looks back on his childhood in Zhejiang, China, he recalls many happy hours spent in his mother’s garden, which was home to a variety of flowering plants, herbs and vegetables. “Naturally, these would attract insects and bugs. Being afraid of them, she would task me to clear them and look after the plants,” recalls Dr Bao. “We also experienced different seasons and every few months, the garden would bloom with new flowers. It was fascinating for a kid to experience.”

That early exposure to horticulture has come full circle today: Dr Bao is now the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer at Singrow, a local agri-genomics firm that has been in the news lately for developing the world’s first climate-resilient strawberry variety, grown in Singrow’s farm at Science Park, which serves as its research and development hub. While strawberries usually grow in cooler climes of between 5 to 15 degrees Celsius, Singrow’s variety thrives anywhere between 20 and 28 degrees Celsius — perfect for hot locales like Singapore, and also a warming world. This was done by cross-breeding and modifying the genetics of the strawberry, creating a variety that has adapted well to warmer climate conditions. The breakthrough has great implications for food security and the world’s carbon emissions, says Dr Bao. “It can be applied to many other crops in the future. We are already experimenting with crops like rice, corn, sustainable palm oil and other staple vegetables, and seeing how these can be grown in new regions to strengthen food security.”

Take saffron, for example. This spice is highly favoured in Middle Eastern and South Asian cooking, but close to 95 per cent of it is grown in one country: Iran. According to Dr Bao, this makes its supply and quality unstable. “In our case, we are able to grow the saffron under a controlled environment,” he says, adding this could halve the harvest time for saffron to about four months. 

Singrow’s breakthrough was the result of advanced genomics technology that leverages a deep understanding of plant genomes. Dr Bao cultivated this understanding throughout his time in school. “I spent most of my education studying about plants, all the way from high school.” That journey culminated in an opportunity to pursue a PhD in molecular biology from NUS. “It was a chance to work with Professor Yu Hao, a renowned name in science,” explains Dr Bao. Prof Yu Hao is the Provost’s Chair Professor and Head of Department at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University’s Faculty of Science. 

PLOTTING HIS OWN PATH

Dr Bao’s stellar achievements at NUS pretty much guaranteed him a promising career in academia, complete with tenure at top universities. “But to my parents’ dismay, I decided that I wanted to pursue entrepreneurship instead. For Asian parents, a professorship is a very stable and honourable career path. My mother couldn’t imagine why I would want to give that up, but after some time, she came around to realising the impact that entrepreneurship could make.”

But to Dr Bao, it was an easy decision. He felt that entrepreneurship was one way of bringing his research to life. “I remember walking through the supermarket and being amazed by the variety of fruits and vegetables on sale here. But upon closer inspection, I found that much of the produce was actually from thousands of miles away — including strawberries, which I love to eat. That’s when I realised there could be a huge market need for a greater variety of produce grown locally. Entrepreneurship was the way to meet this need.”

Having trained as an academic doesn’t necessarily prepare one for the rigours of entrepreneurship, however. “I knew there was a huge difference between the two roles,” says Dr Bao. To tackle this, he turned to NUS once again, relying on its Graduate Research Innovation Programme (GRIP) to shore up his business skills. This comprehensive programme provides participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to get a startup up and running. Support extends to industry link-ups and funding as well. 

“My partner and I were in the second cohort and through the programme, we received solid training in skills like venture creation, market validation and fundraising skills,” he shares. “We learnt how to tell a brand story and build a business model that would appeal to investors, clients and partners.” With the training and networks built through GRIP, they gained quick recognition in the field and were able to secure their first seed investments fairly swiftly. Part of Dr Bao’s success also lay in his clear vision for Singrow and the need it would address. “It definitely helped to have this clear vision before we embarked on our journey,” he says.  

A LABOUR of love

That journey continues in earnest today. Dr Bao says that his firm’s farms in Singapore can provide produce to hotels and online consumers, but to truly scale up, he is looking at the region. This means working with larger farms in neighbouring Malaysia and Thailand to ramp up supply. “We will provide outdoor farms with our crop varieties so they can grow these crops,” he explains. There are also plans to work with these farms to improve their farming techniques so that fertiliser and pesticide use is greatly reduced — by 30 and 70 per cent respectively. 

These successes are certainly welcome. But the one that matters most to Dr Bao is the difference his team is making in the community. “It would be very gratifying to see local communities being able to enjoy homegrown strawberries at an affordable price,” he shares. Singrow’s strawberries currently retail for about $20 a pack, compared to strawberries from Japan, which are sold from $35 to $50 a pack. The community he is impacting includes his own young son. “When I presented my first strawberry harvest from the lab to my family, my son finished the whole box of strawberries,” he told CNA earlier this year. “So I realised I’m doing something meaningful for society.” 

TEXT BY ROY SIM. MAIN PHOTO BY ALVIN TEO