Man fined for illegal activities on farm
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Seo Chau Hian illegally rented out space on Malaysian Feedmills Farms and let another company store wood waste there.
PHOTO: SINGAPORE FOOD AGENCY
A man who holds the licence to a farm in Lim Chu Kang was fined $7,000 on Tuesday for illegally renting out space on the farm.
The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) said on Wednesday that Seo Chau Hian, the licensee of Malaysian Feedmills Farms in Neo Tiew Lane 1, was renting out space to store construction materials such as scaffolding and skip bins between 2017 and last year.
Seo also breached SFA's farm licensing conditions by allowing another company to store wood waste at the farm's premises in 2018.
In that same year, a fire that took more than 24 hours to extinguish broke out at Malaysian Feedmills Farms.
The fire involved a large pile of wood waste, measuring approximately two football fields in area and 15m high, said the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) then. SCDF also called the fire a "deep-seated fire".
Anyone convicted of carrying out unapproved activities on agricultural land and breaching SFA's farm licensing conditions can be fined up to $10,000 or jailed for up to three years.
SFA said that it takes a stern view of any unapproved activities on agricultural land.
"Due to land constraints in Singapore, agricultural land is meant for farming use, and only ancillary farming-related activities approved by the relevant authorities are allowed on the farms," said the agency.
