Response to Motion on Securing Singapore’s Food Future - Ms Grace Fu
9 September 2026
Response to Motion on Securing Singapore’s Food Future by Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment
Mr Speaker,
Food is central to Singapore’s identity. It nourishes us, connects us, and reflects who we are as a people.
We have come to expect food to be readily available and affordable. That confidence is the result of decades of hard work, and we must not take food security for granted.
But securing food is complex, because food is diverse. It spans many commodities – rice, eggs, meat, vegetables, fruits, and many more – each produced under different conditions, sourced from different parts of the world, and moved through different supply chains.
This diversity means that the risks to food supply are equally varied.
Climate shocks, disease outbreaks, geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions are risks that affect food supply.
A drought in the Mekong region could affect 30% of global rice supply. A bird flu outbreak in Latin America may wipe out the entire flock, threatening 40% of global chicken supply. Border restrictions, like those during COVID-19, can disrupt a wide range of food commodities reaching Singapore whether by land, sea or air.
These risks do not operate in isolation. Disruptions to agricultural inputs, and logistics networks can snowball into higher production costs and tighter supply. Countries prioritise domestic needs during uncertainty, making trade flows less predictable.
Recent events – COVID19, several wars – have made this clear. Take the ongoing conflict in the Middle East as an example.
Shipping routes were disrupted, oil supplies tightened, and energy and fertiliser prices surged. All around the world, these shocks have added to inflation and heightened concerns over food security.
Singapore, too, felt the impact of these pressures. Yet, our shelves have remained stocked, and families continue to have food on the table.
But we are not out of the woods. Tensions remain, and ripple effects are still working through global supply chains. Fertiliser supply remains tight, which could impact farm yields and food supply in the months ahead.
Climate risks have long-term implications.
This year, we anticipate a strong El Niño, potentially the strongest on record. It is bringing significantly hotter and drier conditions to our region, putting rice harvests under stress. This comes at a time when many farmers have cut back on planting amid higher fertiliser and diesel costs arising from the Middle East conflict.
Two shocks – one geopolitical, one climatic – compounding each other, threatening the supply of rice, the world’s most consumed staple.
I describe this operating environment not to alarm, but to make clear that we are not operating in a stable, predictable world. Shocks can strike suddenly and cascade in ways we cannot always foresee. Resilience therefore requires us to think at the systems level – across commodities, supply sources, and disruption risks.
This is the central challenge: how do we secure a diverse resource in a fragmented world? Our strategy must be comprehensive to manage diversity, scaled to deliver cost benefits, and adaptable to respond to different risks.
That is the thinking behind the Singapore Food Story 2, or SFS2 – our strategy for food resilience.
Striking the Balance – Availability, Assurance, Affordability
Our approach to SFS2 is guided by three considerations – availability, assurance, and affordability.
We want food to be available, across a range of commodities, from many different countries.
We want food supply to be assured, even when disruptions occur.
And we want food to remain affordable to all Singaporeans, not just those who can afford to pay a premium.
We want all three, but there are trade-offs. We cannot maximise all three at the same time.
Take availability and affordability. Diversification helps ensure access to a wide range of food sources. Importing from farther away may incur higher logistics costs, but it gives us options in times of need. We have seen how this optionality has shielded us when supply from traditional source countries was disrupted. It must be developed and maintained in normal times, so that it can help moderate prices in abnormal times.
Take assurance and availability. For assurance, we could stockpile a wide range of food items, but it would require significant storage space and resources. So, we calibrate what we stockpile. We stockpile essential food items, such as rice, that can meet essential needs during a disruption. This also means that in a severe and prolonged disruption, we must work with a smaller subset of food items, and not expect every food item to remain readily available.
Take assurance and affordability. Having local farms give us assurance in times of supply chain disruptions. Given our constraints, local farms face higher land and manpower costs than farms elsewhere. Our local farms need more certain demand and sustainable prices. At the same time, consumers want food prices to remain low. We could shield the farmers from competition by limiting imports or mandating procurement as several Members have suggested, but this would reduce choice and competition, and push up food prices. Instead, we help local farms become more productive and competitive, while strengthening offtake channels and buying local. This gives our farms a better chance to compete and grow, while allowing consumers to continue enjoying a wide range of affordable food, both local and imported.
The question of availability, assurance, and affordability brings us back to what food resilience is about.
Food resilience is not free. It is an insurance premium we pay during normal times so that Singapore has options in a crisis. But we cannot insure every food product against every risk, at any cost.
Food resilience is not about guaranteeing that every preferred food product remains available in every form – fresh, chilled, even air-flown – with prices kept low through every disruption. That is not possible. Frozen, processed, and shelf-stable alternatives can meet the same essential needs, often at lower cost with longer shelf lives.
Our objective is not to pursue maximum assurance or availability at any cost, nor maximise affordability at the expense of resilience. It is to strike the right balance between availability, assurance, and affordability. That balance is a shared responsibility – for Government, businesses, and people – in accepting trade-offs and developing solutions today for the risks of tomorrow.
Singapore Food Story 2 – An Adaptable Framework for Food Resilience
The trade-offs I have outlined point to a fundamental question: given the diversity of food, what are we securing for food resilience?
Our objective is to ensure that Singaporeans continue to have reliable access to food that can meet essential needs during disruptions.
This means focusing on the foods that are most important for meeting Singaporeans’ essential needs – across major food types that is carbohydrates, proteins, and fibre – while taking into account different dietary preferences and customs.
SFS2 rests on four mutually reinforcing pillars – Diversify Imports, Global Partnerships, Grow Local, and Stockpile.
No single pillar is sufficient. The strength of SFS2 lies in the combinations we can deploy, depending on the food, the disruption, and how long it lasts.
Diversifying import sources is a common strategy across our key food types. Singapore will always depend on the world for most of our food, so it is key that we import widely and build up alternative sources.
Global partnerships with like-minded countries can complement this by strengthening our cross-border food supply chains and keeping food flowing during disruptions.
Stockpiles buy us time while we restore supply during widespread disruptions. We focus on items that meet our essential food needs and are stable with longer shelf-life, including rice, frozen protein, and canned vegetables.
Growing local is a regenerative source of food and can provide a more effective buffer for highly perishable food such as eggs and fresh vegetables.
Let me illustrate how the four pillars come together for our key food types.
Take rice. We cannot grow it locally, so we rely on the other three pillars.
Diversification ensures that we have alternative sources to turn to and we have worked closely with industry over the years to build an extensive network of over 20 sources, including Thailand, Vietnam, India, Japan, and the US.
We can activate the rice cooperation agreements that we have signed with exporting countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia. These can help increase supply in times of need.
And for prolonged disruptions, industry and government stockpiles provide an additional buffer.
For proteins such as eggs, poultry, and seafood, disease outbreaks and export restrictions are risks that can hit quickly.
Diversification allows us to source from unaffected countries and regions, while consumers and businesses can switch to other forms and types of protein. SFA continues to expand our supply options to new sources of meat and eggs, with recent examples of Brunei, Latvia, Lithuania, and Peru. By switching from freshly slaughtered to frozen meat, we can widen our supplier base to more distant countries while ensuring food safety.
Our local farms provide an added layer of resilience and buffer by providing a domestic source of eggs and seafood.
For vegetables, freshness and short supply chains matter because they are highly perishable.
While canned vegetables provide a backstop, fresh vegetables are what most Singaporeans consume day to day. Our local vegetable farms therefore play an important role alongside diversified imports. As explained with the examples given, our SFS2 is premised on building redundancy and resilience in the most cost effective way. We are not presenting it as scarcity, as member He Ting Ru has described it.
Grow Local – Supporting our Farms for the Long Run
Let me turn now to Grow Local that several Members have spoken about. I am very heartened to know that members on all sides of the aisle, including nominated MP, have supported greater support for local produce and local farmers.
Local farms have had to navigate significant headwinds in recent years, including COVID-19 (which had delayed projects and caused construction cost to rise), the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East (which raised energy and feed costs), and broader inflationary pressures.
These experiences underscored the importance of building farms that are productive, resilient, and viable over the long term.
Drawing on the lessons of the past six years, we had refreshed our local production targets to build the capability and capacity of local farms to supply 20% of local consumption of fibre and 30% of local consumption of protein by 2035.
These are ambitious but pragmatic targets, based on where our farms have the potential to scale productively and sustainably. We must continue to aim for higher land, labour, and inputs productivity because we are constrained by limited land and resources.
Since 2019, we have set aside more than $240 million to support local production. Under SFS2, we will continue to do more to support our farms, not less. Overall productivity of our farms has improved. From 2019 to 2025, the productivity rose by 20% for vegetable farms, 46% for seafood farms, and 40% for egg farms. Farms which managed to innovate and harness technology have adapted and grown.
I have heard concerns on whether our approach places too much emphasis on technology, and whether Government should do more for conventional or traditional farms.
Our objective is to strengthen local production so that it can safeguard against climate, environmental, and disease risks, while using land, labour, and utilities as efficiently as possible. We support any technology – traditional or otherwise – that can raise production, lower environmental impact, and improve resilience against climate change and disease outbreaks.
Supporting traditional farmers does not mean preserving traditional methods unchanged. Our approach is to help farms – whatever their starting point – adopt solutions suited to them, produce more with less, withstand shocks better, and build viable businesses.
Our support goes beyond technology adoption and includes practical operational assistance. This is especially relevant for traditional aquaculture farms operating in open-water environments, where they are more exposed to environmental and disease risks. For instance, aquaculture farms receive timely alerts on water quality conditions through SFA’s Aquaculture Sensing Network. These alerts give farmers more time to take preventive measures, such as harvesting fish early when harmful algal blooms occur, helping to reduce stock losses and safeguarding their livelihoods.
Farms can also get veterinary support through the Aquatic Animal Health Services to prevent and manage disease risks. The service has been activated more than 70 times and has helped more than 20 farms address animal health issues early and minimise losses. Farms also benefit from SFA’s farm advisory services and training workshops, which provide further support in areas such as biosecurity, disease monitoring, and feed management.
Together, these measures help farmers better manage day-to-day operational risks and build resilience.
Farms that have tapped on support schemes and initiatives have reaped real improvements in their operations.
Since its establishment in 2021, the Agri-food Cluster Transformation Fund, or ACT Fund, has helped farms adopt technologies and build capabilities, resulting in productivity improvements across farms. To date, SFA has awarded close to $60 million to over 160 projects, supporting a wide range of farms – from open cage to closed containment fish farms, and from traditional soil-based to urban indoor vegetable farms.
Farms that have tapped on the ACT Fund have reaped tangible benefits. For example, CropCiti adopted solar-powered ventilation systems to reduce energy consumption, and an automated irrigation and dosing system which has yielded manpower and water savings. Yili, a very well-known traditional farm, upgraded its vegetable cultivation systems through layout optimisation, improved crop protection, and integrated nursery and irrigation systems. This enabled faster crop cycles and a 20 per cent increase in productivity.
With the additional $70 million under ACT Fund 2 announced in March, farms can look forward to continued support for technology adoption and capability-building.
Ms Nadia Samdin and Ms Joan Pereira, have asked whether the Government can fund farms’ operating expenses and infrastructure needs. Our approach is to help farms build the capabilities and scale needed to become commercially sustainable, rather than permanently offseting higher operating costs. The example that Ms Nadia mentioned has mentioned on energy efficient infrastructure, we will support this. At the same time, we recognise that our farming sector is still nascent, and shocks, even if temporary, are felt acutely. When this happens, we offer targeted and time-limited assistance.
In July, we introduced the one-off Farm Business Resilience Support grant to help local farms deal with the cost pressures from the Middle East conflict. This is in addition to the SME Cash Grant to help eligible businesses manage higher energy prices and cost increases arising from the Middle East conflict. Over the past month, more than 80 farms have applied. This will go some way in providing relief while helping farms strengthen their operational resilience.
We are also building capability through improving the inputs that local farms rely on, such as seeds, fingerlings, and feeds. More than $110 million has been made available under the Singapore Food R&D Programme, for research into better agriculture and aquaculture inputs and farming solutions that can help improve the economics of production. Importantly, these R&D investments are not confined to the laboratory. We totally agree with Member Cai Yinzhou about bringing it out from the labs to the farms. SFA works closely with farms and industry partners to translate research outcomes into practical benefits on the ground.
For vegetable farms, this includes higher-quality seeds tailored for tropical climates and innovations in energy- and water-efficient systems and automation for controlled-environment farming. These can translate into higher yields and fewer losses from disease and climate shocks. The Agri-tech Translation Programme launched by SFA and NUS helped Yili improve yields by 20 per cent by optimising indoor nursery conditions. Research on pH optimisation similarly delivered a 10 per cent improvement in yield, and findings have since been shared with hydroponics farms such as ComCrop and CropCiti. For fish farms, this includes selective breeding research and hatchery technology development, as well as improvements in feeds and vaccines.
Mr Ng Shi Xuan spoke about our strategy towards alternative proteins. Alternative proteins include plant-based and cell-based proteins. Many plant-based protein products are already commercially available, while cell-based proteins remain at an early stage of development. The global alternative protein industry has faced headwinds. Weaker-than-expected consumer acceptance has been a factor. For cell-based proteins, high production costs and scale-up challenges remain significant hurdles. Alternative proteins could contribute to our food resilience over the longer term, when the industry is able to gain broader consumer acceptance with products that are affordable and trusted. The Government is helping companies achieve this through enabling regulations, investments in R&D, and support for commercialisation.
Across RIE2020 and RIE2025, the Government has supported more than 50 alternative protein projects with about $130 million in R&D funding. For cell-based proteins, this includes work on reducing production costs and scaling up manufacturing. For plant-based proteins, this includes work on improving nutrition, taste, and texture. Beyond R&D, companies seeking to commercialise their alternative protein technologies can tap on existing grants and schemes by EDB and EnterpriseSG.
Ms Nadia Samdin and Member Fadli Fawzi spoke about our plans for land and sea spaces for farming and the environmental safeguards in place. Given our limited land and sea spaces, those set aside for food production must be used productively and responsibly – balancing food resilience with environmental sustainability and national land-use priorities. SFA will continue to make agri-spaces available through the annual Singapore Agri-Space Sales (SAS) Programme. We recognise that farms need sufficient tenure to make long-term investments and have progressively enhanced our lease framework to provide longer-tenure arrangements and extended development timelines. This gives farms more time to plan, construct, establish offtake channels, and scale. SFA will continue to engage the industry to ensure that our land and sea space policies are responsive to industry needs.
Mr Fadli has pointed out the issue with the three farms that were asked to vacate. Let me take a little time to explain and clarify. Of the three farms that were named, two of them are not food farms, and they are being supervised and led by NParks. One of them is a food farm, but all three farms have been operating for more than 20 years. So, it is not a case of us asking them to vacate prematurely. All of them have seen through their lease and have had several rounds of yearly extension, as the Member has asked. So, we have done that for many years after the expiration of the lease, and now I think this is the time when we really need to rearrange and reorganise our land and have a land swap with MINDEF. We are continuing to advance the Lim Chu Kang (LCK) Masterplan and Agri-Food Innovation Park (AFIP) through inter-agency planning and detailed studies on land-use optimisation, infrastructure requirements, and environmental considerations. In particular, the Masterplan seeks to develop Lim Chu Kang into Singapore's primary agri-food production zone, supported by shared infrastructure and services to help farms achieve efficiencies and economies of scale.
Ms Nadia Samdin, Ms Joan Pereira, and Mr Cai Yinzhou, brought up the challenges that farmers face on the demand side, so has, Mr Gerald Giam, Mr Dennis Tan, and Ms He Ting Ru. Farms need customers for their produce. Reliable and regular offtakes give farms greater confidence to produce, invest, and scale. While our farmers are gaining customers on their own, they need scale to provide the volume, variety, and consistency required by large buyers such as supermarket chains and the catering segment.
SFA is supporting the Singapore Agro-Food Enterprises Federation, or SAFEF, in playing the role of aggregating supply from the farms and matching it with demand. SAFEF markets local produce collectively under brands such as SG Farmers’ Market, The Straits Bass, and The Straits Fish. This includes vegetables grown by CropCiti, and seafood from SAT and Max Koi. By pooling production, SAFEF helps local producers reach customers and market segments that they may otherwise find difficult to serve independently. SAFEF is developing new demand channels, including institutional buyers and caterers serving hospitals, schools, and large organisations. In July, SAFEF signed new Memoranda of Understanding with local vegetable suppliers serving institutional buyers. This contributes to more stable demand for our farmers, as our Members here have suggested. SAFEF is also helping farms move into higher-value products and market segments. For example, the SG Farmers’ Market® range has expanded to products such as salads, whole lettuces, and mushrooms, while The Straits Fish® brand has introduced processed products such as marinated fish fillets and ready-to-eat meals. SAFEF is partnering food manufacturers, distributors, and F&D businesses to develop new products and incorporate local produce into menus. These efforts enable farms to capture more value from their produce. So, we are allowing several options to go in parallel, and it is for SAFEF, as an association, to find the best way for the farmers, and also for the farmers to support the best option. To have the farmers produce solely for the Government, the public sector, would deprive them to have their produce selling into higher value segments. So, the farmers are in the process of looking at their quality, their production, to find the highest value takers, and SAFEF supported by SFA will help them to find the most optimised channel suitable for their businesses. SAFEF has also helped farms reduce costs by coordinating shared services such as chilled transport, processing facilities, and access to farming inputs. Instead of each farm having to develop these capabilities or procure on its own, SAFEF helps farms pool demand and resources, and benefit from economies of scale.
Ms Nadia Samdin, Mr Cai Yinzhou, Mr Fadli Fawzi and Mr Gerald Giam have spoken about mandating local sourcing. While we encourage all buyers to consider local produce in their sourcing mix, buyers such as supermarkets and caterers need to balance considerations of affordability, consistency of supply, food quality, and consumer preferences. Our approach is therefore not to mandate sourcing requirements, as this may inadvertently reduce access to more affordable sources of food and increase costs for businesses and consumers. Instead, we focus on helping local farms become more competitive and reliable suppliers by aggregating their supply and matching them with larger and more stable buyers. This gives participating farms greater certainty of demand and allows them to achieve scale. As for the suggestions on public procurement, SAFEF is working on it as part of the deals that they have signed earlier on as I had mentioned. We also raise consumer awareness through initiatives like the SG Fresh Produce logos and the Farm-to-Table Recognition Programme, making it easier for consumers to discern local produce when making their choices. SAFEF plays a part here too, by bringing local produce closer to the community and retail landscape through its SG Farmers’ Market events.
Taken together, our efforts strengthen both sides of the demand and supply equation. We support willing and able farms to produce more from each plot, reduce resource use, and become more resilient to weather and disease risks, while building stronger channels to market.
This is not about simply increasing the number of farms, subsidising operating costs indefinitely, or guaranteeing demand. It is about helping farms make structural changes, reap economies of scale, and become more viable, so that local production can contribute meaningfully to food resilience for the long term. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the tenacity and fighting spirit of our farmers, including Mr Gary Chang of San Lay (三利) Marine Culture, whom Mr Cai has highlighted. Through my engagements, I have seen first-hand their dedication and commitment, their fighting spirit, never say die, always innovating, always fighting with climate and the weather, and supporting our farmers to feed Singapore. Many of them have this mission that what they are doing is feeding the nation, including many of our importers. When I bring them along to far-flung countries, they know the mission is to diversify sources. So, everyone in this sector, in this industry, understands the mission of food resilience, and we will continue to partner with and support our farmers to build a stronger and more sustainable local farming sector.
Other Members have spoken about the pressure of rising food prices. That concern is valid. Over the longer term, upward pressure on food prices is likely to persist. Climate change, disease outbreaks, geopolitical tensions and disruptions to supply chains can affect agricultural yields and raise the cost of producing and moving food. We cannot fully insulate Singapore from these global pressures, but through our Singapore Food Story 2, we can better manage the impact of disruptions on our food supply. And we must continue doing what we can to provide support for those who need it most. SPS Hanyan will speak more about this later.
Conclusion – A Uniting Mission and a Shared Responsibility
Mr Speaker, I began by describing food as a diverse resource in a fragmented world. But while food may be fragmented as a resource, it unites us as a people.
Food resilience must therefore be both a national mission and a shared responsibility. That is what SFS2 represents. The Government will do our part. We will build relationships with partners around the world, invest in local capabilities, open up new sources with new countries, strengthen safeguards, and put in place the policies and infrastructure for our food system to thrive. Our importers are putting in place business continuity plans. They are going out into the world with us – finding new suppliers and building new supply chains so that we have more variety on our tables in normal time, and more substitutes during disruptions. Our farms are tapping on Government support to be more productive, more sustainable, and more resilient. We encourage farms to partner SAFEF and other farms to aggregate supply. Our ecosystem players are also part of this journey – translating research into better inputs and practical solutions that strengthen resilience across the system.
And we invite all segments of Singapore to join us in this mission. Businesses and buyers, the HoReCA sector for example, can strengthen their sourcing strategies, put in place business continuity plan and treat local produce as an essential part of their sourcing mix. Households can buy and keep a reasonable amount of non-perishable essential food items for emergencies. And consumers can make an impact through everyday choices – choose local produce where we can; waste less; and stay flexible when supply shifts and substitute readily, because flexibility itself is a form of resilience.
83. Singapore has built a food system that has weathered a pandemic, conflicts, and climate stresses. This resilience is the result of deliberate choices and collective effort by the Government, the industry, and our people. It must be renewed with every generation. Our commitment is clear: whatever happens beyond our shores, our essential food needs will be met. How much we import, grow, or stockpile are means to an end. What matters is that our food system continues to deliver when Singaporeans need it most. This is the Singapore Food Story we are creating together – practical in its choices, resilient in its design, and united in its purpose.
Mr Speaker Sir, in Mandarin please.
对许多国人来说, 超市与菜市总是琳琅满目的食品、选择丰富, 粮食保障早已是习以为常的景象。然而、要确保国人在全球局势动荡、供应链受扰时依然能粮食供应不间断, 背后需要一个多元和具韧性的食品供应体系。这正是 “新加坡食品故事2(Singapore Food Story 2)的目标。
在制定这项食品保障策略时, 政府主要遵循三大考量 :第一, 确保粮食供应充足, 继续拓展进口渠道, 让来源地更加多元化。第二, 确保粮食供应稳定。即使世界某处供应链受到干扰, 我们也能确保主要粮食供应不受影响。第三, 确保粮食价格维持在大众负担得起的范围内。
在最理想的情况下, 我们当然希望粮食货源充足, 供应稳定的同时, 也能维持价格实惠。但鱼与熊掌, 不可兼得。我们必须在三大考量之间做好权衡, 必要时做出取舍, 在这当中找到最好的平衡。
当前, 全球粮食体系正面对气候变化、疾病肆虐、地缘政治紧张及供应链中断等挑战, 粮食生产、运输和价格也可能受到影响。新加坡无法完全免受这些外在因素的冲击, 但政府将加强我们应对风险和冲击的能力。我们四管齐下, 通过进口多元化、粮食储备、本土农业生产、深化国际合作,增强粮食供应保障。
本地农场正在积极转型创新, 提高生产力和可持续发展能力。新加坡食品局至今已透过农粮业转型基金(Agri-Food Cluster Transformation (ACT) Fund)拨款近6000万元, 资助超过160个项目, 并额外投入7000万元支持下一段的创新发展。
同时, 政府也投入超过 1 亿元推动食品科研计划, 将科研成果融入实际耕作, 提升效率。
食品局也与新加坡鲜农总会(SAFEF)合作, 整合本地农场供应, 并协助对接大型采购商, 扩大本地农产品需求, 支持本地农场提高产量。
过去几个月来, 我和同事吴函燕也与进口商、批发商、零售商等业界伙伴进行交流, 了解他们如何建立更稳固、多元的供应网络, 并探讨政府如何能更好地支持业界, 提升新加坡的粮食保障。
显然, 这任务非单一机构、团体能够独力完成。以新加坡人熟悉的菜饭为例, 从蔬菜种植、到家禽养殖,到进口、批发和销售, 供应链上的每一个环节都环环相扣, 共同保障国人的一日三餐。
保障粮食供应需要全民参与。除了政府和业界的努力, 家家户户也可以为突发状况做好准备, 例如多支持本地农产品、减少食物浪费, 并在粮食供应链受干扰时保持灵活、调整消费习惯。
归根结底, 我们的食品策略锁定一个目标,那就是确保我国的粮食稳定供应。尽管外部局势变化多端, 粮食供应充足、稳定、价格亲民, 始终是我们努力守护的承诺。
With this, I rise in support of the Motion. My colleague SPS Hanyan will now speak more on food waste and affordability. Thank you.
