What does Singapore's '30 by 30' food security goal mean for businesses?
Singapore is heavily reliant on the world for its food needs, with more than 90 percent of food currently imported. How can technological innovations be harnessed to ‘grow more with less’ locally and produce affordable food sustainably?
The global food system is under severe stress. Food demand is expected to increase by anywhere from 59 to 98 percent between 2005 and 2050. Already, almost 800 million people worldwide are hungry, and over 2 billion suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. Challenges for the future food supply include falling yield growth, environmental degradation and competing demand for feedstock and cropland.
Asia's food challenge
Asia is at the heart of the food security challenge given rapid urbanisation and growth of the consuming class. More than 550 million people are expected to move to cities in Asia-Pacific by 2030. As millions move to cities for better job opportunities, the region is gaining a new wave of consumers with considerable spending power. This growth will fuel demand for more and new types of food with food consumption in Asia shifting from being carbohydrate-reliant to protein-heavy as people look for healthier, more nutritious and tastier food options.
Opportunities in Singapore's '30 by 30' goal
Singapore’s ‘30 by 30’ goal aims to enhance food security and sustainability amidst global and regional challenges. Today, Singapore is heavily reliant on the world for its food needs, with more than 90 percent of food currently imported. This makes Singapore highly vulnerable to the global and regional imbalances in food supply and demand. While Singapore ranks first on the Economist Intelligence Unit's food security index, it falls to 12th place when climate-related and natural resource risks are considered.
In a bid to reduce its heavy reliance on imports and buffer impacts of supply disruptions, Singapore Food Agency announced a goal to transform Singapore’s agri-food industry into one that is highly productive, innovative and sustainable, to produce 30% of the nation’s nutritional needs locally by 2030.
1 Singapore Food Agency (SFA); Economic Development Bank (EDB); Enterprise Singapore (ESG), Jurong Town Council (JTC); Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA); Singapore Land Authority (SLA); Marine and Port Authority (MPA); Housing Development Board (HDB); Public Utilities Board (PUB); Energy Market Authority (EMA): National Environment Agency (NEA); Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR); Institutes of Higher Learning (IHL); Research Institutes (RI); Building and Construction Authority (BCA); Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF); Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS); Workforce Singapore (WSG); Skills Future Singapore (SSG); Ministry of Environment (MOE); People’s Association (PA); National Parks Board (NParks). SOURCE: Singapore Food Agency
This ‘30 by 30’ goal starts with leveraging existing industry segments such as the production of vegetables, eggs and fish. While Singapore will not be able to produce all its food needs locally, it will continue to go beyond increasing local production, ramp up efforts to diversify the range of countries from which Singapore imports and encourage local farms to develop operations overseas with produce exported back to Singapore.
This report details the strategies in place to realise the '30 by 30' goal, as well as the large opportunities for businesses to tap into.
This report was produced as part of our ongoing Ecosperity Conversations series. Find out more about this session.
