Assistance for Local Agricultural Firms to Support Singapore's "30 by 30" Local Food Production Goal

9 Ms Poh Li San asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) how will the withdrawal of VertiVegies, a local vertical farm which would have been one of Singapore's largest indoor vegetable farms boosting local production of greens by 10%, affect Singapore's 30-by-30 food security goals; and (b) what are the other measures by the Singapore Food Agency to accelerate the growth of local vegetable production which accounts for around 4 per cent of total food consumption in 2022.

10 Miss Cheryl Chan Wei Ling asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) whether the Government will consider plans to support the leveraging or acquiring of requisite intellectual property by local agricultural firms that will support Singapore's 30-by-30 local food production goal; and (b) what support can be provided to companies with agriculture operational knowledge but without full project development capabilities for scale-up farms.

The Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment (Dr Koh Poh Koon) (for the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to answer Question Nos 9 and 10 on today's Order Paper together please?

Mr Speaker: Yes, you may.

Dr Koh Poh Koon: Thank you, Sir. Sir, in our "30 by 30" vision, we aim to build the capability and capacity of the agri-food ecosystem towards productive, resource-efficient and climate-resilient food production. Over the years, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has progressively built the agri-food ecosystem of productive farms, harnessing science and technology to boost production, and preparing the necessary spaces and infrastructure. However, our agri-food sector, like many other sectors, has been facing challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic to strong headwinds, such as high inflationary pressures and construction delays, especially during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

SFA is working closely with our farms to overcome these challenges through initiatives, such as facilitating regulatory clearances and supporting capability development by co-funding the adoption of technology through the Agri-food Cluster Transformation (ACT) Fund. To date, the $60 million ACT Fund has committed more than $23 million of co-funding to 60 projects. The ACT Fund can support licensing, acquisition or registration of intellectual property for farming systems and engagement of consultancy, sub-contracting, and design and development services, which can help to increase our food production.

Farms also work with partners, with complementary strengths and capabilities, especially when they are thinking of scaling up. They work with partners that can bring skillsets and capabilities that they may not have. Local farms can also partner food researchers to tap on the Singapore Food Story 2.0 Research and Development (R&D) Programme, which promotes R&D in aquaculture, sustainable urban agriculture, future foods and food safety.

The agri-land plot that was originally awarded to VertiVegies has since been retendered to another agri-food player to contribute further towards our "30 by 30" vision.

The success of our farms is also dependent on sufficient demand for our local produce. This is why SFA has been working with the industry to improve demand offtake through measures, including supporting the formation of a supply and demand aggregator for farms and retailers, and promotional events to increase the public's awareness of our local produce. Consumers can certainly also do their part, by choosing to purchase produce labelled with the red SG Fresh Produce logo, or dining at food establishments under the Farm-to-Table Recognition Programme, which recognises food businesses that feature local produce in their menus.

Mr Speaker: Ms Poh Li San.

Ms Poh Li San (Sembawang): Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. I have one supplementary question. May I know what is the success rate of such large-scale vegetable farms in Singapore so far?

And on the other hand, there are many community farms, or even urban farms, within our residential estates growing very similar vegetables quite successfully. Would a more decentralised, localised and community-based vegetables-growing model be more viable?

Dr Koh Poh Koon: Sir, I thank the Member for her questions. The first question on success rate, I think it is not something that is easy to define, because today when we look at a farm, we look at their production levels, the tonnage, for example, that they can produce. It is not so much on the scale, per se, although having said that, larger farms with economy of scale, can produce a product at a more efficient rate, and therefore, probably has a lot more price competitiveness when they enter the market and, in that sense, we track the farms' production. So, we define success by the fact that the farm can produce and they are able to find a market to sell their products.

But this also a journey, a process. Every farm would go through a certain period of time before they can scale up their production. Typically, even if they scale in new technology, they will take a while to testbed the technology, get the parameters right before they increase the production in terms of volume. And as they produce in greater quantity, they will have to start looking for potential buyers to off-take those quantities.

So, it is not a straightforward process by just building infrastructure and hoping that the product will be able to enter the market effectively. They do need to go through several iterations and several steps on their own, as well as with potential stakeholders.

On the second question of whether a localised, decentralised model, for example, community farms, can replace the larger-scale farms in reaching our "30 by 30" target. I think the smaller farms do add value and contribute to the "30 by 30" vision, but I think they are operating at a different scale, and if you talk to buyers, especially larger off-takers; like supermarkets, what they want is certainty of production and consistency, in terms of quality and quantity. Therefore, a large-scale farm can probably meet the demands of aggregators and retailers much better than small-scale farms, where they produce in smaller batches, with a different mix from different localised farms and it might be harder to meet the expectations of a larger-scale retailer.

So, we work with all partners and all these farms, whether they are large-scale or smaller ones within a community, can together add to our "30 by 30" vision.

Mr Speaker: Miss Cheryl Chan.

Miss Cheryl Chan Wei Ling (East Coast): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have one supplementary question for the Senior Minister of State. I recognise the challenges and headwinds that the Senior Minister of State has mentioned, but the reality is beyond just capability building and the grants that are given. There are really not many businesses that have been successful, or able to do it at this large scale of is required to support the "30 by 30" goals.

So, my question to the Senior Minister of State is, will the Ministry consider doing a different test bed or model, where you can substantiate one or two businesses that can really scale, beyond just helping them create a demand. Because not many of these businesses have an idea how exactly to do this end-to-end. And if we want to succeed in our goal, I think the Ministry needs to reconsider using a different model.

Dr Koh Poh Koon: Sir, I thank Miss Chan for her question. Indeed, we do not take a one-size-fits-all approach to this because different models may work for different types of partnerships. Even the food ecosystem is not a uniform one. There are those that work more with the small-scale stallholders in our wet markets, there are those that work more with restaurants, some with food and beverage players, and some are also with food processing companies. Therefore, the kind of relationships and partnerships can be different.

But I take Miss Chan's point that, sometimes, the small farm player may not have all the skillsets and the ability to scale and to stitch together the entire value chain, which is why actually some of the farmers managed to scale, not by acquiring their own abilities, which may take too long. Those who want to scale sometimes work with partners that can bring in an ecosystem of ready retailers and ready buyers, so that by working with the partners, they get funding and investments. They can then scale up much quicker and be able to find an off-taker because the partner could well be somebody in the retail space, for example, or in the food manufacturing space.

Just as an example, Kok Fah Technology Farm built and launched Green Harvest, one of our largest greenhouses, which uses a mobile gully system that incorporates hydroponic systems to make the farming of vegetables much more efficient. But as they scale up from a traditional land-based farm into a larger greenhouse facility using more structural elements like the mobile-gully system, they did not do this on their own. They worked with a partner, TeamBuild Construction, which is a traditional construction company that was able to build the infrastructure that they needed more efficiently and helped them in the design phase of incorporating some of these elements into how their farm should operate. And by working with a partner like this, that, to some extent, could co-invest in this new operation, they then combined their strength together: one, with farming expertise and knowledge of the demands of the market; another one with the capability to build a larger structure and make it efficient and scale up. By combining their strength together, they managed to launch Green Harvest. I wish them well. I hope that such partnerships, in other aspects, whether it is in aquaculture or agriculture, can be a way that our farmers can surpass their own current limitations and find new opportunities to grow in scale.