Budget 2021: $60m for new fund to help farmers better harness technology

Some $60 million will be set aside for a new fund to help farmers better harness technology in local food production, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said yesterday.

"Technology is a game-changer and will open new possibilities. We harnessed technology to overcome our water and land constraints, and will do the same for climate change," he said.

The symptoms of climate change include more frequent extreme weather events, which could disrupt global supply chains and threaten global food production.

But the use of technology could cushion the agriculture sector from erratic rainfall patterns and climbing temperatures.

NEW FUND

The new fund, called the Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund, will replace the existing Agriculture Productivity Fund, said Mr Heng.

The Agriculture Productivity Fund is administered by the Singapore Food Agency and was set up in 2014 to help farmers boost yields and increase production capabilities.

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In his speech, Mr Heng cited Eco-Ark, a high-tech fish farm off the Changi coast. Eco-Ark is a floating fish farm built by the Aquaculture Centre of Excellence with funding support from the Agriculture Productivity Fund.

"With advanced aquaculture technologies, Eco-Ark is able to produce 20 times more output than the average in coastal fish farms," Mr Heng said.

"This improves our food resilience, as part of the 30-by-30 goal."

The 30-by-30 goal refers to Singapore's target of producing 30 per cent of its nutritional needs through locally farmed food by 2030 - up from less than 10 per cent today.

The offshore farm, with a total capacity of 96 tonnes, is able to produce 166 tonnes of fish a year - about 20 times more than the minimum level set for coastal fish farms here. Unlike a typical kelong where fish are reared in open net cage farming systems exposed to the open sea, the fish in the Eco-Ark swim in tanks isolated from the currents.

Noting that sustainability is a journey, not a destination, and that technology would advance over time, Mr Heng said: "Costs and benefits of projects will change, as climate cost is factored in and technology advances. We must continue to stay open and adaptive, and carefully balance our development objectives with sustainability considerations."

Professor William Chen, the Michael Fam chair professor in food science and technology at Nanyang Technological University, said while government funding support was important in getting farmers to adopt technology, other factors - such as consumers' receptivity to local produce – was also crucial.

This article was first published in The Straits Times