After spending most of their lives enduring the stresses of the city, musician-filmmaker Pete Teo and his wife, architect Lisa Ngan, felt it was time for a change. The couple, who have previously worked in major world metropolises such as London, Hong Kong and Tokyo, wanted to return to the simpler things in life.
In 2014, they got their chance. That year, Teo and Ngan were introduced to a six-acre property located about 40 minutes from Kuala Lumpur, surrounded by the shady forests of Janda Baik, Pahang. Just the perfect place for an organic farm.
“It was a very rudimentary hobby farm then, with nothing more than a few migrant workers planting stuff on a badly managed slope. We fell in love with the potential of the place, took it over, and revamped the operations,” muses Teo.
“It was hard in the beginning. We knew nothing about farming. But we were lucky enough to stumble into a few commercial organic farmers from Cameron who taught us the basics. The rest we learned from books and the Internet. Hence, whenever we tell people that we are Google farmers, we are only half-joking!”
Watch the Video
Today, A Little Farm On The Hill is abundant with harvest, growing about 30 to 40 types of crops at any one time. Walk through its grounds and you’ll probably spot brinjals and heirloom tomatoes, cabbages and chayote, and all manner of leafy Chinese vegetables. The diversity here is a stark contrast to other commercial farms, which prefer keeping their crop types few and manageable.
“We take a different approach to offer our customers a wider range of produce and to keep our soil healthy. Soil health is very important to us. In fact, we look at the farming side of our operation principally as tending to the health of our environment and soil. Once that is accomplished, the plants mostly take care of themselves,” says Teo.
Sustainability is the keyword for everything in this little Eden. Teo and Ngan utilize multiple-use containers when delivering produce, practice organic housekeeping, and recycle their waste through various environmentally-friendly methods. Yet, their core sustainability efforts are focused on the farm’s soil which Teo describes as "the key to everything".
