New solutions are needed for more sustainable food: Grace Fu

THE need for sustainable food production has "never been more urgent", and new solutions are needed to drive this, said Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu on Friday.

Speaking at the Global Food Security and Sustainability virtual summit, Ms Fu noted that the topic of food security came into greater focus last year with the emergence of Covid-19, which disrupted food supply chains, impacting the supply resilience of many countries and causing massive crop wastage in others.

"Global food supply will continue to face fluctuations and risks, from challenges ranging from disease outbreaks, rising urbanisation, and climate change," she said, highlighting the urgent need for new solutions for more sustainable food.

Singapore currently produces under 10 per cent of its local nutritional needs, and the government has a 30-by-30 target: to have the capacity to produce 30 per cent of Singapore's nutritional needs locally and sustainably by 2030.

Ms Fu noted that innovation and technology will be "critical enablers", and the government has several initiatives to support this.

This includes a S$60 million Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund over the next five years to support local farms to adopt technology and improve their farming systems.

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The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has also awarded over S$23 million in funding to 12 projects under the Singapore Food Story R&D Programme grant call to address challenges facing tropical aquaculture and urban agriculture.

John Eng, head for agrifood division at the Singapore Economic Development Board, who also spoke at the event, noted that technologies would have a big part in achieving the 30-by-30 target.

Three key areas of focus are urban agriculture, aquaculture, as well as alternative proteins.

"It's really about how we overcome the constraints in an urban city, just like Singapore, to really increase food production sustainably, and more importantly, at scale," he said.

Even as technology is being embraced, Ms Fu highlighted that food safety is paramount.

Novel foods have emerged on the market, including cultured or cell-based meat, which do not have a history of use.

SFA had established in 2019 a novel food regulatory framework. Last December, Singapore was the first country to allow cultured chicken to be sold as a food product.

In April, Singapore also launched FRESH - the Future Ready Food Safety Hub - a partnership between the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), SFA and Nanyang Technological University. The partnership seeks to support new product development, particularly novel food, by "plugging the gaps in scientific capabilities for food safety risk assessment and validation".

"Food safety and security are two sides of a coin," Ms Fu said. "To realise the vision of sustainable food supply to address developmental goals of alleviating poverty and hunger, regulators, businesses and scientists must work collaboratively."