Lifetime Entrepreneurial award for Jim Sing

August 11, 2008

Jim Sinf was awarded the lifetime entrepreneurial award. Jim Sing, the 80-year-old hydroponic farmer, was recently honoured with the Lifetime Entrepreneurial Award at the Golden Mountain gala for Chinese achievements for his contribution to the hydroponics industry.

“It’s a real honor to get an award with so many great people,” said Sing. “I’m just a farmer. Nobody knows me from a tree of tomato.” The youngest of nine, Sing knew the greenhouse business since he was 5. His father had bought a green house back when a pound of tomatoes cost half his daily wage.

“I didn’t like it. It wasn’t for me.”

He went on to work at logging camps and driving trucks. Reluctantly he returned to the farm as a promise to his mother when his father died in 1958. He agreed to finish the year’s crop to recoup costs and get the property ready for sale.

“Why would I farm? I made more driving trucks,” Sing recalled.

Scientists from Saanichton Experimental Farms wanted to see if they could improve industry wide problems. Sing agreed to work with them for 2 years. They decided to use sawdust rather than soil for the hydroponics systems, and profits took off. First he covered 35,000 square feet of farmland, then the Victoria hydroponics farms on Oldfield road, with what was the first commercial hot houses in Canada.

Sing Shared his knowledge with anyone willing to listen, he founded a farming co-op, and in 1997 the businesses sing retired from incorporated into a well known brand of peppers cukes, and tomatoes, enjoyed across the world.

“I guess it’s been pretty good for me,” said Sing. “I never meant to be a farmer.”

Source

Written by admin · Filed Under Featured