Farmers tell CNA why "grown in Singapore" is still a challenge, and what needs to change for the country to meet its goal of producing 30 per cent of its nutritional needs locally.
Farmers tell CNA why"grown in Singapore" is still a challenge, and what needs to change for the country to meet its goal of producing 30 per cent of its nutritional needs locally.
The question, he said, is whether Singapore farms can produce high-quality produce at a price that people are willing to pay. Productive farms are not immune either. Universal Aquaculture, a vertical indoor farm that was producing about 33 tonnes of vannamei shrimp per year, is set to move out of Singapore after its lease at Tuas South Link expired in November 2023.
The “30 by 30” vision has proven to be an immense and complex undertaking. Local farmers told CNA about the challenges they face in an industry of intense competition. In contrast, freshness, being pesticide-free and food safety were key factors for consumers who prefer locally grown food. Locally grown food does beat imported food not only in freshness but also nutritional value, as it does not need to be harvested early and spends less time in cold storage and in transit, he added.
Older folks prefer to eat tropical fish like threadfin and marble goby – which Atlas Aquaculture farms – over the likes of imported salmon, said Ms Yoong. It is also more than the 78 per cent who say that more prominent displays of local produce in supermarkets are likely to help. Local lettuce, chye sim and xiao bai cai go for as low as S$1.78 for a 200g packet, while local tilapia is sold at S$4.90 for a whole fish or S$5.90 for sliced fish.
Land rent, outsourcing of food processing, sorting and packing, as well as the cut that supermarkets and distributors take also add up. While Atlas Aquaculture’s 2.1ha farm in Singapore – which produces 10 to 15 tonnes of seafood a year – was on the verge of breaking even, the two co-owned farms in Sarawak and Lombok have already turned a profit.
Professor Paul Teng, a food security expert at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, emphasised the “judicious use of technology” in local farms that are price competitive. Existing indoor farming systems tend to be designed for vegetables like lettuce rather than Asian leafy greens, according to Mr Veera, who is also a Professor in Practice at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Biological Sciences.
Some experts also recommend a return to legacy foodways. RSIS’ Prof Teng pointed to indigenous vegetables like mani cai and wing bean as being resilient to pests and diseases, as well as being easy to grow in Singapore’s climate.The choice of what to grow and how to grow is not made by businesses and scientists alone, but also shaped by how food resilience is scoped in policy.
At the time, sea bass from Malaysia was selling for S$5 to S$7 per kg, and tilapia for S$3 per kg. Yet it would cost about S$26 per kg to grow these fish at his farm in Singapore.Universal Aquaculture was producing about 33 tonnes of vannamei shrimp per year at its farm in Tuas South Link. Mr Ong said the view that “prawns are not food” has changed over time, in part through industry exchanges with regulators.
But SG Veg Farms’ Ms Goh said that although current grant assessments are valuable, they miss certain needs and constraints of urban farms. Operational costs after the farm has been set up are “the primary reason for many farms struggling to survive”, Ms Goh said, adding there could be grants for post-production such as processing, sorting, packing and delivery.
One thing that Singapore lacks is a central body that supports farmers technically, he said, pointing to the Cooperative Extension System in the US as an example. Mr Ang, who studied horticultural science in Florida, believes that Singapore needs more horticulturalists who have a deep understanding of how to grow plants and are up to date with agricultural technology.
Mr McGuinn of Atlas Aquaculture said that food security requires “everything from start to finish, and there’s none of that” in Singapore. “When high-tech egg farms were first set up in the late 1980s, we only competed with one overseas source with slight feed cost disparity. “It is still an uphill task for us as we are always chasing an ever-expanding pool of highly efficient overseas competitors,” he said.
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