$30m for local farms to grow more, grow faster

A $30 million grant has been launched to help local farms ramp up their production of eggs, leafy vegetables and fish over the next six to 24 months.

The 30x30 Express grant will help accelerate local food production in the shortest time possible, said the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) in a joint statement yesterday.

The grant will let successful applicants defray upfront costs to increase production capacity in the coming months, and go towards reaching the Republic's 30 by 30 goal - to produce enough food to meet 30 per cent of its nutritional needs by 2030.

Currently, less than 10 per cent of food is grown locally.

The open grant call, which will be launched in the middle of this month, will call on local agri-food players producing the three food types to submit their proposals to grow more, and faster.

Fish, leafy vegetables and eggs are the three most commonly consumed food items in Singapore. Last year, local farms produced 14 per cent of leafy vegetables, 26 per cent of eggs and 10 per cent of fish consumed here.

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Founder of ComCrop Allan Lim said the grant will help accelerate plans to scale up production.

The company, which set up the first commercial urban rooftop farm here in 2014, is test bedding the growth of leafy Asian greens such as xiao bai cai and cai xin in a 6,000 sq ft greenhouse atop an industrial building in Woodlands.

It produces 50kg of leafy greens every day to supply to supermarkets here.

It hopes to build seven more such rooftop greenhouses within the next six to eight months and expand production capacity by up to 10 times, said Mr Lim.

He added that the farm has spent years acquiring and test bedding advanced farming systems, and figuring out what works. "It's time to put to use what we already know. We are all ready to scale up."

SUPPORT LOCAL

Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli said it is important that efforts to grow more locally are supported by consumers.

"Demand from consumers will spur our farmers to become more productive, and allow them to reap the benefits of economies of scale."

SFA and MEWR said they will also work to identify industrial spaces and vacant sites that can double as alternative farming spaces.