Singapore Food Resilience Road Map
The Singapore government has embarked on an ambitious goal of producing 30% of Singapore’s nutritional needs by 2030. This is part of the “30 by 30” plan to ensure the city state’s food resilience and vibrancy in the agri-tech sector. To achieve this, a holistic and long-term approach to space-planning, boosting agri-food technology and developing local agri-specialists is needed. Currently, Singapore only has 1% of land available for food production and over 90% of food is imported.
The Singapore Food Agency’s strategy of “three food baskets” are Diversifying Food Sources, Growing Locally and Growing Overseas.
Singapore’s food importers leverage the country’s excellent connectivity and global free trade environment to import from multiple sources in 170 countries. This ensures that the city state can weather any disruptions to any one source. To complement this, a US$45 million (S$60 million) Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund has been launched to help farmers adopt and harness technology that can boost domestic food production. This is part of the broader Green Plan 2030, a policy initiative featuring a range of ambitious 10-year sustainability goals.
The Singapore Food Agency (SFA), Economic Development Board and Enterprise Singapore aim to attract the best in class global agri-tech companies as well as nurture promising homegrown agri-tech companies, with the goal to help them expand overseas. The SFA also recently awarded more than US$17 million (S$23 million) to fund twelve research and development projects in sustainable urban food production. Research and development hold the key to the future of food, and will help mitigate the impact that climate change, rising population and decreasing land for agricultural has on food security. The awarded projects will cover a range of key research areas such as genetics, disease and health management, optimization of systems and nutrition.
The majority of the projects will be aquaculture-focused, for example: developing genetic resources and optimizing feeds for red snapper, vaccine development for Asian seabass, and selective breeding of barramundi. The rest of the projects will be on urban agriculture. Urban food solutions will also be studied and are expected to play a key role in global food security, particularly for Singapore. Agricultural game changers include operating in unconventional areas, for example, indoors, on rooftops and in underutilized spaces. Hydroponic and vertical farming system will employ a variety of innovative features, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain technology and automated climate control.
U.S. companies who offer relevant technologies or expertise may wish to explore these opportunities or partner with Singapore entities. Please contact Ms. Luanne Theseira at the U.S. Commercial Service in Singapore at Luanne.Theseira@trade.gov