The Usual Place Podcast

How can we get Singapore consumers to buy locally farmed eggs, seafood and veggies?

This week on The Usual Place, host Natasha Ann Zachariah unpacks into why Singapore's food sustainability targets have been changed.

Natasha Ann Zachariah

In 2019, Singapore set a farming target: to produce 30 per cent of its nutritional needs, including fish, eggs and vegetables, locally by 2030.

Six years on, that goal has been revised with more specific targets.

On Nov 4, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu announced that the new target is for farms here to produce 20 per cent of local fibre and 30 per cent of local protein needs by 2035.

In this episode of The Usual Place, I chat with Mr Ken Cheong, chief executive of the Singapore Agro-Food Enterprises Federation and Mr Ray Poh, founder of Artisan Green – an indoor farm that grows pesticide-free crops – about the new food sustainability targets.

Will we reach our 2035 goal, and what will it take to get Singapore consumers to choose locally farmed proteins and vegetables over imported ones?

Highlights (click/tap above):

2:24 Why was the initial goal so difficult to achieve?

5:30 Economies of scale lowers operational costs

7:55 Why transport is the biggest bugbear for local produce

22:49 Why local eggs are safe to be eaten half-boiled

29:45 Will CDC vouchers push more to buy local produce?

Read Natasha Ann Zachariah’s articles: https://str.sg/iSXm

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Follow Natasha on LinkedIn: https://str.sg/v6DN

Filmed by: Studio+65

Edited by: Teo Tong Kai and Chen Junyi