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SINGAPORE: Nine companies have received grants totaling S $ 39.4 million under a plan to strengthen Singapore’s food security, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) said on Wednesday (September 9).
Announced in April, the 30×30 Express grant supports efforts to boost the production of common consumer foods such as eggs, vegetables and fish.
It is part of a goal to meet 30 percent of Singapore’s nutritional needs with locally produced food by 2030, in order to adapt to the country’s long-term challenges including climate change, supply chain disruptions and resources, and COVID-19. pandemic.
SFA said it received more than 40 proposals by the end of the open grant call in late May.
The proposals from the nine selected companies “incorporated high-productivity agricultural systems that can be quickly built and implemented to achieve high levels of production,” the agency said.
“The proposals also demonstrated good potential to successfully implement the projects based on the company’s track record, agricultural experience and the project team,” added SFA.
The original budget of S $ 30 million was increased to support these proposals.
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SFA said seven of the nine awardees have accepted the grant, including six vegetable farms and Chew’s Agriculture, an egg farm.
One of the vegetable farms, ComCrop, will expand its current Woodlands site to include greenhouses equipped with robotic growing systems to optimize space efficiency and reduce labor.
IFFI, another beneficiary, will establish an indoor vegetable farm with a vertically integrated growing system up to 8 m in height, employing soil-based and hydroponic growing methods in a fully controlled, pesticide-free environment.
Chew’s Agriculture will build additional houses to increase its production of hen-shell eggs. The houses will be equipped with an integrated climate control system along with egg and manure collection systems, minimizing egg breakage and maximizing egg production.
Sustainability and Environment Minister Grace Fu during a visit to the IFFI high-tech vegetable farm on September 9, 2020 (Photo: Facebook / Singapore Food Agency).
READ: More than 100 farms benefit from productivity fund as Singapore addresses food security
“While we continue to plan to address our long-term challenges, we must also respond quickly to the immediate global food supply challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Minister of Sustainability and Environment Grace Fu.
“Supporting our agri-food industry and increasing its production capacity remains a key strategy to strengthen the resilience of Singapore’s food supply.”
Ms. Fu visited ComCrop and IFFI on Tuesday. The grant will give businesses “an additional push to adopt highly productive farming systems to increase production over the next 6 to 24 months,” he said in a Facebook post.
The Minister of Sustainability and Environment, Grace Fu, visited ComCrop and IFFI’s vegetable farms on September 9, 2020 (Photos: Facebook / Grace Fu)
“We will continue to work with the agri-food industry and support them to grow bigger and grow faster to improve our food security,” said Lim Kok Thai, CEO of SFA.
“We urge consumers to support our local farms and buy local products, which can be easily identified with our new SG Fresh Produce logo,” added Lim.
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