Ecosperity Conversations

What Singapore's '30 by 30' Food Security Goal Means for Businesses

As a net food importer, Singapore is exposed to fluctuations in global prices and supply. Our food security is vulnerable to factors such as population growth, rising urbanisation and incomes, climate change, disease outbreaks, and resource scarcities. To strengthen our food security, Singapore has in place three national baskets:

• diversify import sources
• grow local to mitigate reliance on imports and buffer against supply disruptions;
• and grow overseas to help our companies access new and larger markets.

’30 by 30’ raises our ambitions to strengthen the ‘grow local’ basket further – to catalyse our nascent agri-food industry to produce 30% of our nutritional needs by 2030, up from less than 10% today. 

How do we harness technology to ‘grow more with less’? Can Singapore be a forerunner in sustainable urban food solutions, producing affordable food in a highly productive way that employs climate-resilient and sustainable technologies that will enable us to overcome our land, water, energy and manpower constraints? Can we not only solve our own food security challenge, but also export these solutions to benefit other cities like us?

Join Mr Lim Kok Thai, CEO of the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), in a dialogue on what the ’30 by 30’ goal means to Singapore as a responsible global citizen, solving issues in food security, sustainability and climate change. He will also talk about how businesses can play a meaningful role in co-creating solutions on this exciting journey.

Image credit: Sustenir

About the speaker

Mr Lim Kok Thai
CEO, Singapore Food Agency (SFA)

Mr Lim Kok Thai was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the Singapore Food Agency on 1 April 2019, a new statutory board established under the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources to oversee food safety and food security. SFA brings together food-related functions previously carried out by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA), the National Environment Agency (NEA) and the Health Sciences Authority (HSA).

Prior to assuming the post of CEO, SFA, Mr Lim was the CEO of AVA from 1 October 2017. The AVA was the national authority entrusted with the mission to ensure a resilient supply of safe food, safeguard the health of animals, fish and plants, as well as facilitate agri-trade for Singapore.

Mr Lim joined AVA from the Singapore Police Force (SPF), where he held various key appointments including Deputy Commissioner of Police (Policy), Director Operations and Commander of Bedok Police Division.

Attendance to Ecosperity Conversations is by invitation. For more information, contact us at ecosperity.convo@temasek.com.sg.