Given its size, Singapore is an unlikely place for a farming revolution, but with tiered fish farms, vegetable plots atop office buildings and lab-grown shrimp, the nation aims to beef up its own food production and rely less on imports to feed its 5.6 million people.
Singapore produces about 10 percent of its food, but aims to raise that to 30 percent by 2030 under a plan known as “30-by-’30.”
The challenge is space. With only 1 percent of Singapore’s 724km2 land area devoted to agriculture and production costs higher than the rest of Southeast Asia, the pressure is on new urban farmers to answer the government’s call to “grow more with less.”
Photo: Reuters
“Whenever I talk about food security in Singapore, I tell folks don’t think land — think space. Because you can go upwards and sideways,” said Paul Teng, a professor specializing in agriculture at Nanyang Technological University.
Sustenir Agriculture is one of more than 30 vertical farms in Singapore, which has seen a doubling in so-called sky farms in three years.
The hydroponic farm grows non-native varieties such as kale, cherry tomatoes and strawberries indoors under artificial lights and sells the produce to local supermarkets and online grocers.
Sustenir last year raised S$22 million (US$16 million) from backers, including Singapore state investor Temasek and Australia’s Grok Ventures, which will be used for an expansion in Singapore and opening in Hong Kong.
Temasek is also providing funds to Apollo Aquaculture Group, which is building a S$70 million highly automated, eight-story fish farm.
Apollo says the new farm will deliver more than a 20-fold increase in its annual output of 110 tonnes of fish.
“It is too unpredictable to do things now in the traditional way,” said Apollo chief executive officer Eric Ng, citing problems with algae blooms in recent years that have wiped out farmers’ fish stocks.
Singapore has not given a total pricetag for 30-by-’30, first unveiled in March, but it has various funding schemes.
Aside from Temasek, the government has put aside S$144 million for research and development into food, and S$63 million for agriculture firms to use technology to boost productivity.
It also plans to build an 18 hectare agri-food site for indoor plant factories and insect farms by the middle of 2021.
“Investor interest in urban agriculture is rising as environmental pressures and technology developments catalyze new ways of producing food locally,” said Anuj Maheshwari, a managing director at Temasek who focuses on agri-business.
Not everyone is convinced by the focus on high-tech.
Egg farmer William Ho, 53, said that the government is putting too much stock in new agri-tech firms with no track record.
“Many of them have failed. That’s why I’m always asking the government: ‘Why don’t you invest in us old-timers. We are more practical,’” he said.
A major hurdle for urban farmers are the expensive inputs like technology that puts their products out of reach for many consumers, Teng said.
One Singaporean firm still in its infancy, but hoping to reach a mass market, is Shiok Meats, which aims to be the world’s first to sell shrimp grown from cells in a lab.
The process involves cells grown in a nutrient solution in tanks. After four to six weeks, the fluid is siphoned off and leaves behind raw shrimp mince.
Shiok is backed by Henry Soesanto, chief executive officer of Philippines-based Monde Nissin Corp, which owns British meat substitute firm Quorn.
Shiok cofounder Sandhya Sriram hopes to tap into the enthusiasm for alternative protein that propelled the market value of US-based Beyond Meat to more than US$5 billion after its debut this month.
After raising US$4.6 million in seed funding this year, Sriram said that Shiok Meats plans to sell its product in one or two premium restaurants by late next year, and by 2030 hopes to produce enough shrimp meat to feed Singapore.
“It [30-by-’30] is achievable, but it depends which part of the food industry they want to take a leap of faith on,” she said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Local companies believe that nearly a third of all job opportunities will vanish in 10 years due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey released by online job bank yes123 on Tuesday. In the survey of 1,016 companies on the labor market’s third quarter outlook, the job bank focused in part on AI’s impact on workers and asked companies what percentage of jobs they felt would be lost to AI’s round-the-clock productivity and high-speed computing prowess. Respondents felt on average that 29.2 percent of job opportunities would be lost to AI over the next 10 years, but there
Taiwanese workers earned an average of NT$47,000 per month this year, but 40 percent are struggling financially and 18 percent plan to switch jobs within 12 months, two separate surveys showed yesterday. The amount equals a 5.4 percent increase from a year earlier to a decade high, 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said. The government is due to review the nation’s minimum wages. Employees at computer and consumer electronics manufacturers reported the highest average monthly wage of NT$60,000 a month, followed by semiconductor firms at NT$59,000, and vendors of shoe and textile products, along with software and Internet businesses at NT$55,000, 104 Job