The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting supply chains across the world, but in Singapore, dinner plates are full thanks to strategic moves by the Government to diversify food sources and build up local agricultural capabilities.
Here, where 90% of food is imported, the target is that by 2030, we will produce 30% of our nutritional needs locally – the “30 by 30” goal.
Visit any supermarket here and you will see an array of locally grown vegetables and herbs, fresh seafood, and eggs with different properties, produced in one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
Advances in urban farming have allowed us to increasingly utilise our limited land area and cultivate far more yield per square metre than in traditional farmlands.
Singapore’s journey in urban farming could become a good model for cities around the world amid an increasing demand for food, which will be apparent in city centres due to migration.
Getting to 30% self-sufficiency in less than a decade is a massive task, but it is not impossible.
The Government and stakeholders are creating opportunities in the agricultural industry – making more spaces available for urban farming, fostering research and development, and offering new educational programmes.
The vision is for agriculture to go the same way as manufacturing in Singapore, by embracing data and developing technology to control the production process.
It is with the hope that as these and other breakthroughs develop over the next decade, the real difference Singaporeans will notice will not simply be hundreds of vertical farms and fresh vegetables on the menu at cafes. What they will enjoy is cheaper, more nutritious food, with items that suit society’s health needs.
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Source: The Straits Times, 16 May 2020