Singapore’s Food Security Should Also be a Foreign Policy Initiative

Food security is one of the priorities for Singapore, and it should be for every country in the world.  In an age of climate change, we are going to see major changes in weather patterns that will affect agriculture all over the world, and there will be tragic consequences.  Singapore, for example, has stated the ambitious goal of producing 30% of its food by 2030, the “30 by 30”.  Currently, 90% of our food is imported. 

Singapore does not have much land available for agricultural production, being a densely populated city state.  One alternative is to secure land in other countries, which is politically sensitive and has major political risk as climate change puts pressure on ecosystems.  Another alternative is to leverage on advances in technology.  Vegetables, fruits, eggs, and fish are areas of great potential.  Another area of interest in Singapore is lab grown meats.  As of 2020, there were 238 licensed farms in Singapore. 

With regards to land, only 1% of Singapore’s land is being used for conventional farming.  Since 2017, land has been leased in two areas, Lim Chu Kang and Sungei Tengah, for large-scale commercial farm projects.  We can grow that area of land usage by utilising technology.  Examples include multi-story LED vegetable farms and recirculating aquaculture systems.  They produce 10 to 15 times more vegetables and fish than conventional farms.  There is also a heavy emphasis on hydroponics, and roof top gardens.  Singapore is heavily invested in the idea of growing food in the urban spaces, from carpark rooftops, to reused outdoor spaces, and even retrofitted building interiors, creating vertical farms. 

Even with all this, it is not enough.  What we are doing here, in Singapore, is something that we need to expand to the region, and develop a similar ecosystem of food startups focused om modernised farming.  This can be expanded to neighbouring countries first, and include more varieties of fruits, vegetables.  We need to consider a more refined, technology heavy approach to animal husbandry and aquaculture, because it does not help us if we achieve some semblance of sufficiency in food while our neighbours starve.  That would destabilise the region, and create an untenable security situation, affecting our prosperity.  We cannot have food security of the countries around is do not.