Securing Singapore's Food Future

Ms Joan Pereira.

Mr Speaker, conflicts and hostilities around the world continue to have an impact on all aspects of our lives, especially food. This Motion rightly frames the response we need to tackle the global squeeze on food supply. We need to strengthen our food resilience, reduce food waste and mobilise all of society to keep food affordable.

Where is food resilience tested most directly? At our hawker stalls and on the dining tables of our everyday households.

Sir, the Government has said we must brace for the fuller impact on prices of imported food and electricity, backing this with an additional $600 million in support for households in July. Meals at hawker centres, coffee shops and food courts account for the largest share of food and beverage services expenses at 50.8%. That is why I am of the view that the affordability of food at hawker centres and coffee shops deserve our attention in this Motion.

For many of us, hawker centres are not just a lifestyle choice. They are part of an essential infrastructure, often cheaper and more practical than cooking at home after factoring in ingredients, utilities, food preparation time and variety of choices. But the prices of budget meals are increasing as hawkers report growing difficulty sustaining budget options due to rising rentals, utilities and ingredient costs.

NEA has confirmed it does not regulate cooked food prices directly, relying instead on tender conditions to provide budget meals. This model works when costs are stable. It is less sustainable when hawkers are squeezed from multiple directions and it is the lower-income family who feels it first.

Government support for hawkers is real and welcome, but there remains no consistent mechanism ensuring that support given to hawker businesses reliably translates into lower prices for the resident buying a bowl of noodles. For our average HDB households, affordability has to be designed into the system.

I therefore urge the Government to consider five targeted measures for hawker food accessibility.

First, strengthening local food resilience. I would like us to tackle the question of food supply resilience head on. Singapore imports over 90% of our food and successive shocks – the pandemic, the Ukraine conflict's fertiliser disruptions and now the Middle East crisis – will keep testing this vulnerability. I therefore support accelerating Our Singapore Food Story 2 strategy, and especially on Growing Local since local supply chains are less exposed to global shocks and disruptions.

There have been many promising and exciting technologies and players sprouting up in the local agri-food sector in the past decade, some of whom I have met over the years. Most unfortunately, a good number of them have also succumbed to high operating costs and inability to capture sustained local consumer demand amidst fierce competition from cheaper regional imports despite initiatives like the SG Fresh Produce label.

Government grants have shown to be helpful in supporting startups to enter this space and get their farms going, but these grants tend to focus on the initial set-up costs. Many of our agritech farms continue to be weighed down by high costs of electricity, water and rental bills.

To deal with the high costs, I urge the Government to take immediate steps to execute a plan to build multi-tenanted facilities for agri-food production and ensure that subsidies are in place to keep rents manageable as they grow.

Also, these farms used to be supported by a huge wave of venture capital flowing into this space a few years ago, but that has since slowed down. I would like to call upon the Government to continue encouraging the steady and sustainable growth of this sector, perhaps by extending the Agri-Food Cluster Transformation (ACT) Fund to welcome co-investments with other investment partners. Supporting this sector with grants is not just a matter of addressing market failure. It is a matter of our nation's food security and resilience.

Second, boosting demand for local produce. I would like us to deal with the issue of weak demand for local produce by introducing a national platform to aggregate the demand by our hawkers and market food stallholders to support and facilitate bulk ordering from local producers. This platform should be well integrated with existing supply chains such as the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre and Jurong Fishery Port that are familiar to our hawkers and merchants.

If we can make this work, this will present a huge demand opportunity for our hawkers and market stalls to mop up fresh local produce. Aggregating orders will also help local farms to have better demand predictability, unlocking wholesale volume pricing and helping them to scale production. Of course, our hawkers and market stall holders will not simply buy local just because they are available, which is why subsidies will have to be in place to bring the prices to a competitive level compared to regional imports.

Third, reducing food waste through all-of-society partnerships. The Motion also calls for partnerships with all of society to reduce food waste. This deserves more attention alongside affordability. Our hawker centres, where food is prepared and sold in small batches throughout the day, remain an under-tapped source of surplus that could be redirected to lower-income households instead of the incinerator.

I urge the Government to work with NEA, SFA and community partners like Food Bank Singapore to formalise surplus food redistribution arrangements at more hawker centres, particularly those serving mature HDB estates with a higher concentration of lower-income and elderly residents. This would advance the Motion's twin goals at once – less food wasted and more affordable, nutritious food reaching the households that need it most.

Fourth, keeping food supplies affordable. I would like to propose a recurring rental and utility rebate for hawkers who commit to keeping budget meals genuinely affordable, rather than relying on one-off support, so savings are structurally passed down to residents rather than left to goodwill. This can be seen as an extension of the budget meals scheme at SEHCs, so that this scheme can be rolled out to all hawker centres and benefit more low-income Singaporeans.

Fifth, Hawker Meal Voucher scheme. I would like us to consider a targeted "Hawker Meal Voucher" scheme ring-fenced within existing Community Development Council (CDC) Voucher allocations, redeemable specifically at budget meal stalls, for households identified through existing ComCare, Public Assistance and HDB rental flat schemes to deliver targeted support for our lower-income households.

The Johor Bahru-Singapore rapid transit system is expected to put pressure on our merchants and hawker centres. We need to ensure that these affordable and accessible food options remain available to our lower-income groups. Hence, support for their viability is paramount. Sir, in Mandarin.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] I hope that we have not missed the boat on supporting our local farmers. This, together with stronger food waste partnerships and structural hawker affordability measures, is how we deliver on the Motion's call for a food system that is resilient, low-waste and genuinely affordable for every household. Support for our local farmers, particularly in lease tenures, technology and research, will be crucial to help them develop and sustain their businesses.

(In English): I hope that we have not missed the boat on supporting our local farmers. This, together with stronger food waste partnerships and structural hawker affordability measures, is how we deliver on the Motion's call for a food system that is resilient, low-waste and genuinely affordable for every household. Support for our local farmers, particularly in lease tenures, technology and research, will be crucial to help them develop and sustain their businesses.

Sir, our hawkers and markets are the last-mile guardians of affordability for ordinary residents, and our lower-income HDB households are the ones whose resilience is tested first when global shocks hit. I urge the Government to treat food resilience, waste reduction and affordability not as separate cost-of-living cushions to be topped up at each Budget cycle, but as one structural priority, so that when prices rise, it is the burden that is shared and it is surplus that is redirected. I support the Motion.

Mr Gerald Giam.

Mr Speaker, our local agriculture sector is a vital component of our national resilience. Yet it continues to face severe structural headwinds that threaten its long-term viability. Today, we are debating a Motion to enhance food resilience and support efforts to ensure Singaporeans have access to an affordable food supply amidst geopolitical uncertainties and climate-related risks. While I agree with the intent of this Motion, achieving genuine food resilience requires an earnest review of the structural market forces that are currently encumbering our local farmers.

In November 2025, the Government replaced our national commitment to produce 30% of our nutritional needs locally by 2030, known as the "30 by 30" goal, with revised 2035 targets of 20% for fibre and 30 percent for protein, citing pandemic supply shocks, high energy and manpower costs, and tough financing conditions.

While Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohamad explicitly acknowledged the need for substitute demand, the Government's primary remedies remain overwhelmingly focused on automation and agri-tech grants, helping entrepreneurs build high tech farms while leaving them to compete against cheap imports, creates a deep inconsistency: trying to solve a demand side shortfall with supply side fixes.

This reliance on capital expenditure heavy supply fixes carries a fundamental flaw. Without more certain offtake, continuous supply side grants risk creating projects that rely heavily on grants but fail once funding ends.

Our farmers built what we asked them to build. The missing piece was not the grant. It was the buyer.

Without assured demand, local seafood and vegetable farms often operate below their installed planting capacity, struggling to compete against cheaper imports despite heavy technological investments.

To ensure the new 2035 targets do not suffer the same fate as the original "30 by 30" target, the Government needs to bridge the demand gap by reforming its procurement framework. I propose modernising public procurement to secure Singapore's food resilience, to move away from qualitative preference points towards binding structural procurement of local produce. The objective is to achieve the revised 2035 local production targets by dynamically leveraging institutional demand and resolving the issue of caterer margin compression.

We must first recognise the structural limitations of the current tender framework. When I raised a Parliamentary Question in November 2024 regarding local food uptake by major institutional buyers like the SAF and public hospitals, Minister Grace Fu highlighted qualitative preference points awarded under the Farm to Table Recognition Programme. While awarding bonus evaluation points in GeBIZ tenders is a useful first step in signalling intent, evidence indicates that it has not driven mass scale volume uptake in critical categories. According to the SFA's Singapore Food Statistics report released in June 2025, locally farmed vegetables accounted for just three percent of total domestic consumption, while local seafood dropped to 6.1%.

There are three key reasons that this policy could be failing to drive purchase volume. First, because GeBIZ tenders prioritise price competitiveness, caterers using premium local produce must absorb the price gap directly into their own margins, disincentivising purchases beyond the bare minimum. Second, caterers can meet SFA's 15% farm to table threshold by buying low-cost items that already have price parity, like eggs or bean sprouts, completely bypassing local leafy greens and fish. Third, static one- to two-year GeBIZ contracts demand fixed long-term supply volume, because small high tech farms cannot risk committing to fixed tonnages over two full years. They are locked out of public tenders, leaving them without the guaranteed offtake they need to scale.

To address these limitations, I would like to propose four procurement approaches that can be implemented in Singapore. First, we must set institutional procurement targets tied to the 2035 goals. The Government must lead by example. Rather than only awarding discretionary evaluation points, public institutions such as the SAF, public hospitals and Government Ministries, should aim to purchase local produce beyond the national 2035 targets. Specifically, they should set an institutional baseline of 35% for protein across seafood and eggs, and 25% for fibre via vegetables within their catering budgets. Expanding this into binding institutional procurement targets across all public sector catering creates the guaranteed offtake our farmers desperately need.

State level ring-fencing of institutional food budgets is a viable global model. For example, the European Commission introduced a draft proposal to mandate that fruit, vegetables and milk bought through its $20 million Euro annual school scheme must be made in Europe, explicitly prioritising domestic industries and local farms with low climate footprints over cheaper foreign imports.

To ensure compliance with Singapore's Free Trade Agreements and the WTO's Government Procurement Agreement, which generally prohibit discriminatory non-tariff barriers, the Government can utilise perfectly legal workarounds. Under Article 23 of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, an explicit general exception is made for procurement necessary for the protection of essential security interests. Given that local food production is a matter of national security, this provision can be invoked. Alternatively, procuring entities can legally set aside specific procurement thresholds for SMEs, naturally preferencing our local small scale agricultural producers without violating national treatment rules.

While this is not an exhaustive list of legal workarounds, the point is that work arounds are possible with sufficient political will.

Second, the Government should provide an automated flat percentage rebate, such as a 25% cashback on all SG Certified produce purchased by institutional caterers. This figure should be calibrated to bridge the typical baseline price gap between local high-tech produce and cheaper regional imports in order to achieve greater price parity.

To avoid overburdening caterers with manual invoice submissions, this rebate could be integrated directly into business-to-business distributor level reporting. When a caterer buys from a certified local aggregator like the Singapore Agri Food Enterprises Federation Limited, the wholesale system logs the public institution contract code and automatically trigger the rebate credit from the Government, requiring minimal extra paperwork from the caterer.

This adapts the demand side principles of the US State of Michigan's 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan Kids and Farms programme. According to the programme's 2023 to 2024 evaluation results published by the Michigan State University Centre for Regional Food Systems, a US$3 million state investment generated an estimated US$10.2 million in economic impact, reaching 594,000 children. By using an automated block rebate, Singapore removes administrative friction while achieving the same margin protection for buyers.

Third, we must build a B2B dynamic food procurement digital exchange. While SAFEF's SG Farm app tracks production metrics, it is not a transactional marketplace. A dedicated digital exchange allows institutional caterers to order flexibly from a pool network of local farmers based on daily yields, bypassing rigid multi year tenders. Similar dynamic procurement models were successfully piloted in the UK's Monmouthshire County, and recommended in the National Food Strategy to direct public spend to local growers.

Fourth, instead of expecting farmers to plant blindly and pray for buyers, institutions should post upcoming procurement requirements, so farmers will sow precisely what is needed for harvest. This can be done using a food procurement digital exchange. Connecting demand directly to planting schedules, provides farmers with predictable long-term orders, while giving caterers full visibility on incoming yields.

Public institutions can be instructed by the Government to share their forward demand on this platform. If we begin with the public institutional buyers, the local farming sector will readily plug into the system as aligning with this forward demand will become the clearest pathway to securing predictable long-term orders.

To assess the fiscal impact of a flat cashback for institutional buyers, we can model the annual cost based on an order of magnitude estimate of public sector demand. Across our major institutional buyers, including army camps, about 12,000 public hospital beds and 6,500 individuals in our prison facilities, total catering contracts across these core domains conservatively exceed $300 million annually. It will be helpful if the Ministry could publish the actual consolidated public sector food procurement figures to enable an accurate evaluation of the scale of our institutional purchasing power.

Because raw ingredients typically account for roughly 30% of total catering contract values, this represents a $90 million total addressable ingredient market. However, because local farms produce fresh vegetables, eggs and seafood, rather than staple grains or red meats, our targets focus on fibre and protein. Under my proposed institutional targets of 25% for fibre and 35% for protein, caterers would procure approximately $23 million to $32 million worth of SG Certified local produce annually.

Applying a 25% cashback rebate strictly to this local offtake brings the total cost to the Government to between $6 million and $8 million annually. This modest annual expenditure stands in stark contrast to supply side interventions like the initial $60 million Agri-food Cluster Transformation Fund and its subsequent $70 million top-up, which averages roughly $14 million annually over five years.

Re-allocating or matching even a fraction of this capital into a targeted demand side rebate guarantees immediate offtake revenue for our local farms and would be vastly more capital efficient than repeatedly pouring tens of millions of dollars into supply side grants for infrastructure that risks sitting under-utilised without guaranteed buyers.

Mr Speaker, Senior Minister of State Mr Zaqy himself rightly identified the need for substitute demand. However, identifying the problem is only the first step. We need to follow through with active solutions, especially for the farmers who have poured their life savings into their farms, believing in Singapore's food resilience ambitions. If we are serious about not repeating the failure of "30 by 30" when we arrive in 2035, we cannot keep pouring capital into supply while leaving demand to chance.

I urge the Government to study these structural reforms, which can be implemented at a modest and well justified fiscal cost to secure a resilient and sustainable future for local food production. Sir, I support the Motion.

Ms Lee Hui Ying.

Mr Speaker, Sir, food is at the heart of what makes a Singaporean, Singaporean. We brave the heat to queue for the latest restaurant opening. We debate with great seriousness, which stall serves the best nasi lemak. Perhaps this love for food comes from knowing, deep down, that food is precious. We are a country that produces very little of what we eat.

The pressures are no longer abstract. The recent rise in food prices, driven in part by hotter weather and conflict in the Middle East conflict, reminds us that events far beyond Singapore can affect what appears on our shelves and on our tables. For our lower-income families, access to nutritious food is already becoming harder.

Food resilience must therefore mean more than keeping food available. It must also mean keeping nutritious food affordable and ensuring support reaches those who need it most.

Together with my fellow GPC colleagues, I rise in support of this Motion. I will focus on how we can make the most of our excess food.

We generate nearly 800,000 tonnes of food waste each year. More than 80% of this food waste is incinerated. This is a striking contrast: we import over 90% of our food, yet we discard an amount of food many times larger than our domestic production of vegetables and seafood.

By channelling excess food back into the community, or recovering the nutrients in food by-products through valorisation, we can make every piece of food count. This reduces imports and reliance.

I will discuss three ways which we can improve our management of excess food or food waste: first, to build on the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act to increase donations of good food; second, to develop a diverse food waste management industry instead of centralised solutions; third, helping Singaporeans reduce food waste in their daily lives and promote sharing in the community.

Mr Speaker, Sir, our food waste strategy must prioritise food donations over disposal. We are turning surplus food into good food, while helping others in the community have a nutritious meal at low cost.

Let us start from where we left off at the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. In 2024, we passed this Act as a Private Member’s Bill. By providing protection from liability for food donors, this removed a crucial legal barrier to food donations, especially by businesses that might otherwise hesitate to donate unsold or excess food. This was an important first step. We should now ask how the Act can do more to actively promote donations.

During the debates on the Act, several ideas were raised for consideration to increase food donations. There were calls to support better equipment and logistics, such as blast chillers, which could allow food to be stored safely for longer periods. This would enable more food donations. Members of Parliament (MPs) then also called for tax incentives for food donations itself, a point the committee studied but left for future implementation.

One key area highlighted which we could do better is the date marks on food. Today, even with the Good Samaritan Act, food that has passed a date mark cannot be sold or donated. I understand this is important for food safety. But there is a difference between safety date marks and quality date marks.

Safety date marks are the “Use By” and “Expiry Date” marks. Quality date marks are the “Best Before” and “Best By” marks. Other countries such as Australia and New Zealand already distinguish between the two. I am not suggesting that we standardise food labels. I am proposing that we make clearer that food past the quality date mark can still be safe for consumption.

We can start with the Good Samaritan Act. The Act can be amended to allow food past its quality date mark to be donated. The existing four conditions for waiver of liability would serve as safeguards for ensuring that donated food remains safe for consumption.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in the past two years since passing the Good Samaritan Bill, the world has changed. Tariffs and the Middle East conflict have exacerbated tensions and strained supply chains. Amidst this change, there is a constant. A constant showing that Singaporeans are able to donate food responsibly. We have not had any major food safety incidents from donated food. This is now the right time to expand this Act, meet the good intentions of Singaporeans and let it encourage more donations.

Next, I turn to focus on our local food waste management ecosystem, in other words, managing food that is no longer suitable for human consumption.

This industry is about to experience a massive evolution, as Tuas Nexus comes online. The food waste treatment facility at Tuas Nexus is expected to commence operations soon and it will give us the capability to use anaerobic digestion to turn food waste into biogas and recover energy. This is a valuable national capability.

I believe this will have a significant impact in our ability to better reduce landfill usage and recover energy from food waste. But we must be careful about unintended effects. Such an effective, centralised solution, could easily end up as the only solution for food waste.

In my conversations with stakeholders in the food waste industry, we hear concerns that it may be difficult for smaller, private enterprises to compete with the lower costs of a large-scale facility like Tuas Nexus.

Turning food into biogas is definitely better than sending it to the landfill. But we can do better. After all, transport to Tuas Nexus and the digestion process, also use energy. If we only use energy to make energy from biogas, this only cancels each other out.

Food is not only energy. It is nutrition and nutrients. Good food must first be sent to people who need it. Food by-products, still rich in nutrients, are better placed returning the nutrients back into our ecosystem through compost or animal feed. The better we are able to recycle our nutrients in Singapore, the more resilient we will be to fertiliser shortages.

We can do this by cultivating a diverse food waste management ecosystem, with many different private enterprises. Food waste or excess food can be channelled to the most efficient processes. This complements Tuas Nexus as a centralised solution for anything that cannot be easily managed.

We already have many passionate Singaporeans contributing to this. Examples include social enterprises like Divert to Second Life or Ground-Up Initiative who engage in food rescue, or others like Ento who use black soldier flies to valorise food waste. [Please refer to the hon Member's clarification later in the debate.]

These enterprises need our support. As land-scarce Singapore with a limited farming sector for offtake, it will always be a challenge for them to scale up. They need scale to reduce costs, innovate, and maximise their impact.

The Government can help in two ways: land and markets.

These industries need the Singapore Land Authority’s support in access to affordable land so that they can scale their operations. For example, Ground-Up Initiative, who runs a community food recycling programme in Nee Soon South, has a sharply higher rent after relocating to the new site in Chencharu Close. Affordable land would allow these companies to focus on their operations and impact, rather than stressing over fixed costs which they are structurally unable to compete with a centralised facility like Tuas Nexus.

I propose exploring the setup of special food waste management zones with lower lease rates tied to food security and waste reduction outcomes. Longer leases would give the certainty needed to innovate and scale, rather than risk having to relocate every few years.

Besides land, we must ensure market forces do not create skewed incentives. We have made progress by mandating food waste segregation and treatment in large buildings. But naturally, large building managers will want to seek the cheapest option for disposal and treatment. A large facility such as Tuas Nexus may therefore be highly competitive even when a local enterprise could produce a better food security or community outcome.

Pricing models should reflect these wider benefits. This could include differentiated disposal charges, grants for high-value recovery, procurement preferences or recognition schemes for building owners that choose the most effective management solutions. The objective is not to undermine Tuas Nexus. It is to ensure Tuas Nexus complements, rather than crowds out, the wider ecosystem.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I have talked about our laws and our industry. Now, I turn to our people.

Food resilience must also become a part of our everyday life. In 2016, NEA found that food made up half the waste of Singapore households and half of that was avoidable. I believe Singaporeans know the value of saving food and want to do the right thing. But good intentions need practical channels, clear information and convenient infrastructure.

How can we help Singaporeans do more? I have three suggestions.

First, we can promote a culture of community sharing, so that safe excess food can reach people nearby instead of being thrown away. Not only do we reduce waste, we give people a chance to interact with their neighbours, their community, to build a real community.

Community fridges can be one such avenue. They provide an easy avenue to donate food, and their visibility reminds residents of the importance of saving food and donating the excess.

Currently, there is no formal management of the fridges, leaving them at risk of abuse. The Government can take the lead to set up a nationwide framework and best practices, to give volunteers the right direction. We can work with volunteers, food charities and Town Councils to develop basic standards for hygiene, temperature control, labelling, monitoring and maintenance. This would protect both donors and recipients while giving volunteers clearer guidance.

Technology could accelerate this effort as well and we can find more ways to match residents with excess food to those who need it. In Singapore, we already have platforms such as Olio, Yindii, Treatsure or Fridge Restock Community SG, which help redistribute excess food. The Government can work with such platforms to leverage their technology and data to improve coordination at the HDB estate level, share anonymised data on demand and supply, help residents see the opportunities around them.

Second, we can build a stronger community culture around growing, preparing and sharing food. Many of our residents have green fingers. We see the plants along corridors or in community gardens or on rooftops. But these are not organised. We can go further to turn these into higher scale activities, to make every estate in Singapore a productive one.

In Nee Soon South, we are working with Edible Garden City to set up community gardens on rooftops, getting residents involved to manage and be a part of building food resilience. Those who are not inclined to garden can help by providing food waste for composting or preparing food through cooking or fermentation.

This not only creates a low-cost source of food. Its value is wider. It gives people a sense of purpose, preserves valuable local knowledge about our nature and gives people a meaningful hobby. It has been shown that gardening has positive effects on our well-being.

The National Parks Board already operates the Social Enterprise Community Urban Farm programme. This programme could be expanded to support more community gardens in our housing estates and even private estates, including a platform to coordinate the distribution or sale of community garden produce. Over time, we could have more farmers’ markets, community kitchens and donation drives centred on local produce.

Last, I would like to talk about one feature of our daily life that affects how we manage food waste – our single-chute system. It is time we examine whether our single-chute system can be improved to help us reduce food waste. The single chute is familiar and convenient, but it makes food waste harder to measure, separate and channel into higher-value uses.

Segregated food waste has two important benefits. First, optics. Residents can see how much food they discard and this could help them plan better. Second, efficiency. Segregated food waste can be channelled into more efficient uses such as valorisation.

With more food waste available, it would also encourage setting up new businesses in the food waste management industry.

South Korea offers one possible model, with radio-frequency identification (RFID)-enabled food waste bins that charge users according to the amount discarded. They have successfully reduced food waste and generated useful data for policy-makers.

Can the Ministry consider piloting this in selected estates? Based on our learnings on the Beverage Container Return Scheme, we could provide incentives or rebates for food waste disposal and use the data to help households understand their food waste patterns and help agencies design better interventions.

Another avenue where we could increase individual accountability for food waste segregation is at our coffee shops. We have successfully shifted to a tray return model. It will not be difficult to go another step to have Singaporeans clear excess food from their plates before returning the trays. Not only can this build the good habit to segregate food, we could also help the current problem of birds scavenging at the tray return area.

These may come with its own challenges to implement, but food resilience is precisely about preparing before a crisis and not after one. We could test, pilot, learn and improve while conditions are still stable. Sir, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mr Speaker, Sir, together with my fellow GPC colleagues, I rise in support of this Motion. I will focus on how we can make full use of excess food.

Singapore generates nearly 800,000 tonnes of food waste each year, of which more than 80% is incinerated. At the same time, we rely on imports for over 90% of our food, presenting a stark contrast. The amount of food we discard is many times greater than our domestic production of vegetables and seafood.

Good ideas need practical channels, clear information and convenient infrastructure to be put into action. How can we help Singaporeans do more?

I believe we can promote a culture of community sharing, so that safe, edible excess food reaches nearby residents instead of being needlessly thrown away. Community fridges are one such avenue, providing a convenient channel for food donations. Their visible presence also reminds residents of the importance of saving food and donating surplus food.

At present, these community fridges lack formal management and are at risk of misuse. The Government can take the lead by establishing a nationwide framework and recommended practices to give volunteers clear direction. It can work with volunteers, food charities and Town Councils to develop basic standards for hygiene, temperature control, labelling, monitoring and routine maintenance. This would not only safeguard donors and recipients, but also provide volunteers with clearer guidance.

Technology can accelerate this effort and explore more ways to match residents who have excess food with those who need it. Food resilience must become part of our everyday lives. I believe Singaporeans understand the value of saving food and are willing to do the right thing.

(In English): Mr Speaker, Sir, to conclude, we already have the foundation to strengthen our food security and reduce food waste. We have the Good Samaritan Act. We have a growing food waste management industry. We already have many Singaporeans contributing to food security in the community.

Our task now is to connect and scale these efforts. With the Government's help, we should rescue edible food before it becomes waste. We should recover nutrients before we recover only energy. We should create room for diverse enterprises to innovate. And we should give every household practical ways to waste less, share more and understand its role in food resilience. With that, Mr Speaker, Sir, I support the Motion.

Mr Ng Shi Xuan.

Mr Speaker, can Singapore one day become a food producer for the world while strengthening the security of our own food supply?

It may sound ambitious for a country that imports more than 90% of what we eat, but our objective is not self-sufficiency. It is resilience.

Earlier this year, at the MSE's Committee of Supply debate, I spoke about import diversification, global food partnerships and strengthening our local production capabilities. Today, I would like to focus on one part of that resilience – strengthening our protein security through technology and innovation.

If we take food resilience as seriously as we take water and energy, then our food system must likewise be built on options, buffers, redundancy and insurance. Resilience is not about predicting the next disruption. It is about ensuring that we always have alternatives when disruption occurs.

One way Singapore can create more of these options is by shifting our approach from Singapore Food Story 2's "Grow Local" towards "Produce Local".

When we think about growing food, we naturally think of land. But land is scarce in Singapore and there are physical limits to how much we can intensify traditional agriculture. On the other hand, when we think about producing food, the conversation changes. We begin talking about engineering, biotechnology, controlled environment production, aquaculture and fermentation. Many of these production methods can also be less exposed to diseases, weather and climate disruptions, giving us another layer of resilience.

In other words, we begin talking about innovation, and that has always been one of Singapore's strengths. We move from land scarcity to technological possibilities.

The question is, how do we do it well? One area where this shift from growing to producing can make a difference is protein.

Mr Speaker, fellow hon Members have spoken about strengthening conventional local production. I would like to complement that discussion by focusing specifically on protein security and the role alternative proteins can play as an additional production pathway under Singapore Food Story 2.

Protein is essential to a healthy diet. We obtain it from many sources, including meat, fish, eggs, dairy, soy and legumes. But these protein sources can differ significantly in cost. If we are serious about both food security and affordability, we should also consider how much protein each food dollar buys.

Sir, for a like-for-like comparison, let me use products readily available in our supermarkets. An average pack of fresh chicken breast contains about 60.75 grammes of protein and costs $4.65 per pack – or approximately 13 grammes to 14 grammes of protein per dollar. Compare this with silken tofu. A 95-cent pack containing around 15 grammes of protein works out to approximately 15.8 grammes of protein per dollar, comparable to and slightly higher than the chicken breast example.

I share this example because it demonstrates how diverse our protein options can be, both in cost and in how they are produced. There is therefore significant potential for innovation in producing affordable protein.

Mr Speaker, I therefore have three proposals to strengthen Singapore's alternative protein ecosystem: first, clarify our long-term strategy; second, accelerate commercialisation; and third, preserve the capabilities that we have built.

Mr Speaker, Singapore's investment in alternative proteins did not happen by chance. More than $300 million has been committed through successive Singapore Food Story R&D programmes covering areas including future foods. And SFA announced another $42 million for future foods and food safety projects in November 2025.

Private investment followed. Investment into alternative proteins in Singapore rose from US$5.9 million in 2019 to US$169.8 million in 2022. We also built supporting infrastructure through players such as Nurasa, SIFBI and ScaleUp Bio.

We have therefore invested deliberately in building this ecosystem. What is less clear is the long-term strategy to sustain and translate these investments into enduring capabilities.

I therefore ask the Government to clarify the long-term role it sees for alternative proteins under Singapore Food Story 2 and future iterations of the programme. What capabilities do we intend to anchor in Singapore and how do we ensure that the investments already made translate into enduring production capability?

I recently met Mottainai Food Tech. It is a local startup founded by food scientists that transforms food-manufacturing byproducts such as soybean pulp into affordable products that are high in fibre and protein. Its JiroMeat is already commercially available and featured on The Plattering Co.'s plant-based menu. Yet its current production capacity is only about 250 kilogrammes every two days.

For companies like Mottainai, having a good product and good technology is only the beginning. The real challenge is scaling.

Mr Speaker, I sell products myself. I know that sometimes demand can be supply-led. When a product is new, there is often a long educational phase for consumers to understand it, try it and decide whether it works for them. There are also two realities when bringing a new product to market – the more you produce, the lower the unit cost can become, and the more people use it, the more feedback you receive to improve the product.

We have only just started this process for alternative proteins in Singapore. We should not stop here simply because demand has not caught up yet.

To move from innovation to commercialisation, food tech companies must scale production, meet food safety and export certification requirements, win over consumers and secure sufficiently large orders. Each step requires capital, expertise and crucially, a credible first customer. If we are to treat alternative proteins as one of our options for food resilience, then we should help viable companies bridge this gap from innovation to commercial scale.

The support these companies require is not entirely new. Many of the levers already exist. We have invested in shared facilities, pilot equipment and scale-up capabilities through platforms such as the Food Tech Innovation Centre, CREMER and ScaleUp Bio. Instead of having new entrants invest in manufacturing capacity, SFA could consider giving these companies credits to leverage these shared facilities to test their products.

On the demand side, hon Members have pointed out that public procurement needs to stand in line with our food resilience goals. But alternative proteins are rarely featured. This made me wonder whether we have sufficiently strong feedback loops in our public sector procurement and events, and enough opportunities for credible local food innovations to be tried. We do not need to guarantee demand, but we can provide credible products with more opportunities to be tested, improved and adopted.

Ultimately, Singapore's domestic market alone will not provide sufficient scale for many food innovations. Our strategy must therefore be export-oriented from the outset – produce local, ready for the world. A successful Singapore reference customer, backed by trusted standards and reliable production, can become a passport to regional and global markets.

As companies graduate from R&D and commercialisation programmes, agencies can consider whether support should extend through the last mile of certification, testing and overseas regulatory approvals so that successful research can become exportable commercial products.

In this regard, I therefore suggest broadening the scope of Market Readiness Assistance grants for food production companies so that support can extend beyond market promotion to areas such as overseas certification and regulatory approvals. This can help promising companies become global market ready and achieve scale more quickly.

Mr Speaker, not every company or technology will succeed, but that is the nature of investing in resilience. We maintain options not because we know which one we will need, but because we cannot know which one we will need.

This brings me to my third point. Even when individual companies do not succeed, we should ask how much of the capability we have built can remain in Singapore. What do we lose when a food tech company or high-tech farm closes? The equipment may still be here and the land can be retendered. But the more important assets may be the people, operating knowledge, production data and management experience accumulated over the years. Once these teams disperse or these capabilities move overseas, they may become much harder to rebuild.

We should therefore distinguish between company failure and capability loss. Where possible, agencies should explore how experienced workers and specialised equipment can be redeployed to other local producers and how lessons and non-proprietary knowledge from publicly-supported projects can benefit the wider ecosystem. A company may not survive but the capabilities we invested in building should not necessarily disappear with it. Preserving the capabilities we have already built is one side of the equation. We must also consider the next generation of talent we are building.

This is especially important as Singapore continues to build the next generation of food innovation talent. We already have a pipeline across NUS, Singapore Institute of Technology and our polytechnics. Across the various programmes I reviewed, at least 146 diploma and undergraduate places were available per academic year for students pursuing relevant food-related studies.

The question is whether there will be sufficient opportunities for them to apply these skills here. If food innovation does not continue to thrive in Singapore, graduates may increasingly move into other sectors while future students may begin to question whether food science and technology remains a viable specialisation.

I met a young resident, Lukas, during my house visit in August, who is pursuing Food Science at Nanyang Polytechnic. He was genuinely glad that I am raising this topic in Parliament. At Mottainai, Chloe has been working in the sector for two years, while Poh Ee is an NUS undergraduate interning with the company. Young Singaporeans, like Lukas, Chloe and Poh Ee, have many options but they have chosen to pursue their interest in the future of food and are learning how they can contribute to our Singapore Food Story. The question for us is whether our ecosystem can give them sufficient opportunities to do so here.

Where the food sector cannot immediately absorb these capabilities, agencies, industries and our institutes of higher learning should also explore pathways into adjacent areas where these skills remain relevant. This allows us to retain valuable technical capabilities within Singapore while the food innovation ecosystem continues to mature. Ultimately, preserving capability means looking at both ends of the pipeline – retaining the people, knowledge and assets we have already built, while ensuring that the next generation continues to see a future in food innovation.

Mr Speaker, I have followed a plant-based diet myself all my life, but alternative protein includes cell-based products and insects. So, it is not simply a topic for vegetarians. Protein is a daily need, not a daily choice. Its availability is therefore not something we should leave to chance. It is something we must plan for as part of our resilience. We cannot predict the next disruption, but we can ensure that Singapore retains as many options as possible when it comes. That means clarifying the technologies we want to anchor, helping good innovations reach the market and preserving the capabilities we have already built. If we are serious about food resilience, our next chapter must go beyond "grow local" towards "producing local and ready for the world". Mr Speaker, I support the Motion.

Minister Grace Fu.

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 – COVID-19 and several wars – have made this clear. And 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 Nino, 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. Food 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. And that is the thinking behind the Singapore Food Story 2, our strategy for food resilience.

Our approach to Singapore Food Story 2 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. But 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 every preferred food product remains available in all forms – 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, for businesses and people – in accepting trade-offs and developing solutions today for the risks of tomorrow.

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.

Singapore Food Story 2 rests on four mutually reinforcing pillars: (a) diversify imports; (b) global partnerships; (c) grow local; and (d) stockpile. No single pillar is sufficient. The strength of Singapore Food Story 2 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 the 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 Singapore Food Story 2 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.

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 Members of Parliament, have given 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 also have 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 Singapore Food Story 2, 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, 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 Agri-food Cluster Transformation 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% increase in productivity.

With the additional $70 million under Agri-food Cluster Transformation 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 capability and scale needed to become commercially sustainable, rather than permanently offsetting higher operating costs. The example that Ms Nadia has mentioned, energy efficiency infrastructure, we would 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 and 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 it being applied and bringing it out from the lab 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 percent by optimising indoor nursery conditions. Research on pH optimisation similarly delivered a 10% 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 the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2020 (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 Economic Development Board and Enterprise Singapore.

Ms Nadia Samdin and Mr 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 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 just 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 basically 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 a time where we really need to re-arrange and re-organise our land and have a land swap with MINDEF.

We are continuing to advance the Lim Chu Kang Masterplan and Agri-Food Innovation Park 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, 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, the variety and consistency required by large buyers, such as supermarket chains and the catering segment.

SFA is supporting 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 SATS 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 and 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 higher-value 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&B 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 the farmers also to support the best option. To have them produce solely for the Government, the public sector would deprive them to have their produce selling into higher value segments. So, they are still in the process where they are looking into 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 business.

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 of business 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 have 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 Marine Culture who Mr Cai Yinzhou has highlighted. Through my engagements, I have seen first-hand their dedication and commitment, the 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. Senior Parliamentary Secretary Goh Hanyan will speak more about this later.

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.

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 greater variety on our tables in normal times 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 with 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 hotels, restaurants and cafés/catering (HORECA) sector for example, can strengthen their sourcing strategies, put in place business continuity plans 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.

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 a 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, in Mandarin, please.

(In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] For many Singaporeans, supermarket shelves and wet market stalls stocked with a wide variety of food products have long been a familiar part of everyday life. However, ensuring that Singaporeans continue to have reliable access to food that can meet essential needs amid growing global uncertainties and supply chain disruptions requires a diverse and resilient food supply system. This is precisely the goal of Singapore Food Story 2.

In formulating this food resilience strategy, the Government is guided by three main considerations. First, to ensure availability of food supplies by continuing to expand import channels and diversify our sources. Second, to provide assurance on food supply, so that even if supply chains are disrupted elsewhere in the world, our supplies of key food items remain unaffected. Third, to keep food prices within an affordable range for the public.

Ideally, we would want food supplies to be available, assured while remaining affordable to consumers. But we cannot always have the best of all worlds. We must carefully balance these three considerations, making trade-offs where necessary to achieve the best possible outcome.

Today, the global food system faces challenges from climate change, disease outbreaks, geopolitical tensions and disruptions to food supply chains. These may affect food production, shipping and prices. Singapore cannot fully insulate itself from these external pressures, but the Government will strengthen our ability to respond to risks and shocks. We are adopting a four-pronged approach: diversifying imports, stockpiling, enhancing local food production and deepening global partnerships to strengthen our food resilience.

Local farms are also actively transforming and innovating to improve productivity and sustainability. To date, SFA has awarded close to $60 million through the Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund to support more than 160 projects, with a further $70 million committed to support the next phase of innovation. At the same time, the Government has invested more than $100 million in food R&D programmes to translate research outcomes into practical farming solutions and improve productivity and resource efficiency. In addition, SFA is working with SAFEF to aggregate supplies from local farms and connect them with major buyers, thereby increasing demand for local produce and supporting farms in raising production.

Over the last few months, Senior Parliamentary Secretary Goh Hanyan and I have also engaged industry partners including importers, wholesalers and retailers. We sought to understand how they are building stronger and more diversified supply networks, and explored how the Government can better support the industry as we work together to strengthen Singapore's food resilience.

Clearly, this is not a task that any individual or organisation can accomplish alone. Take the example of the "cai fan" (economic rice) that Singaporeans are familiar with: from growing vegetables and rearing poultry to importing, wholesaling and retailing – every link in the supply chain is interconnected and contributes to safeguarding Singaporeans' daily meals.

Safeguarding our food supply requires everyone's participation. Beyond the efforts of the Government and industry stakeholders, households can also prepare for contingencies. For example, by supporting local produce, reducing food waste, and remaining flexible and adjusting consumption habits when food supply chains are disrupted.

Ultimately, our food strategy is centred on one overarching goal: to ensure food resilience for Singapore. No matter how external circumstances evolve, our commitment remains the same: to ensure food supplies remain available, assured and affordable.

(In English): With this, I rise in support of the Motion. My colleague, Senior Parliamentary Secretary Goh Hanyan will now speak more on food waste and affordability.

I see two hands for clarification. So, Ms Lee Hui Ying.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. In my speech earlier, I mentioned about social enterprises, such as Divert for Second Life. I just wish to clarify that they now go by the name of D2L.sg.

Mr Giam, you have a clarification to make.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to make a clarification to the Minister. She said that, regarding farm offtake, it is for SAFEF to find the most optimal channel for their business and to produce solely to the public sector will deprive them of selling to the best segment.

Sir, I did not say that farmers should be required to sell only to the Government. I was asking the Government to buy much more from local farmers to guarantee greater offtake of their farm produce. Farmers can and should continue to sell to other channels, including supermarkets.

Mr Tiong, you have a clarification to ask?

Thank you. I have been to multiple local fish farms and one of the common criticisms is that SFA does not seem to easily distinguish between fish grown and produced in Singapore farms, versus fish that are imported, held briefly and then sold as local. One farmer described this to me as "农夫", a farmer, versus "农商", a trader.

So, it will be quite easy to verify the actual growth capacity, or rather the production capacity of local farms by verifying the holding capacity, the number of ponds of water and the ponds of fish. Does the Minister agree with me that this is a gap that needs fixing? Thank you.

I am not sure if this is a clarification of my speech, Mr Speaker.

Yes, Mr Tiong, this is a new point you are raising. So, the Minister is right; she only responds to clarifications to her speech. I will move on. Mr Cai, you also have a clarification to ask?

Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Minister for clarification. I would like to find out more a bit about what she mentioned about SAFEF being able to scale, with economies of scale to benefit more farmers. From what I understand on SAFEF, there is only 23 aquaculture farms registered out of the 67 that currently remain, so I am just wondering what are some strategies that SFA has to convince more farmers to come on board to SAFEF.

My other question is, what is the public analysis of the sentiment of SAFEF products? Is there analysis of the public being more obliging to support and buy local produce? Has SAFEF also done public roadshows in supermarkets to engage consumers on the products that they are promoting, to get more people to understand a bit more about where the produce comes from?

I think that there is one suggestion, which is really SAFEF to do more to promote local. As I mentioned in my speech, that is something that SAFEF will have to do, and SFA will encourage and support SAFEF to do this even more. We are still at the very early stage and therefore, there is a lot more ahead of us. I would first say that this is really at the starting block. We are not even out of the first 10 metres in a 100-metres race, so there is a lot more that we can do.

With regard to the Member's other question, what was the first question?

The first question was how to get more farmers on board SAFEF, with currently only 23 out of 67 registered.

SAFEF just has to do more as an association. So, this is the largest association of farmers and SFA is working with the most viable organisation. I think the Member's question is also a reflection of the status of SAFEF. SAFEF is relatively new and young, and it is given a role that is quite a significant role and therefore, it has to get the support of its members to be an effective trade association. So, with SFA supporting and we are hoping that SAFEF will also, like as the Member said, expand its members so that it can be more effective as an aggregator.

Mr Cai, another clarification?

Yes, I thank the Minister for the clarification. I just had a suggestion to also consider working with Daniel from Fish Farm Association, who is also quite keen to see how he can help aggregate produce from fish farmers to support SAFEF's work. Thank you.

Senior Parliamentary Secretary Goh Hanyan.

Mr Speaker, Minister Grace Fu has spoken about the efforts we have made under Singapore's food supply for Singapore Food Story 2: diversifying import sources, deepening partnerships, growing local and building stockpiles.

I will now speak about the Government's approach to ensuring affordable food supply and reducing food waste, and how they are both integral to food resilience. A food system that is secure but unaffordable, or one that wastes a large share of the food it secures, is not truly resilient.

Members have spoken passionately about food affordability and the pressure that Singaporeans face, in the face of rising food prices. We understand these concerns. Food is, after all, a daily necessity, and even a small increase in price can add up. This is why food affordability is a priority for the Government and we have made several deliberate choices in this area.

However, to address this issue, we must first be clear about the constraints we face. We cannot fully insulate our domestic market from these global price increases. Singapore imports more than 90% of our food. As a small open economy, we are exposed to movements in the global food prices. We saw this during COVID-19 and following the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. More recently, disruptions in global energy supplies have increased fuel, freight and fertiliser costs, adding pressure to food prices worldwide.

Second, artificially suppressing food prices would not be sustainable as well. While such measures may provide temporary relief, they do not address the underlying causes of higher food prices. Furthermore, suppressing food prices artificially risks undermining the viability of suppliers, food businesses and hawkers that are facing rising costs themselves.

Our approach therefore, cannot be to control food prices directly, but to strengthen food affordability in a sustainable way. We do this by maintaining fair competition, diversifying our food sources, expanding consumer choices and providing targeted support to households that need it the most.

The first part of our approach is to keep our food market competitive and resilient. Diversification not only strengthens food security, it also contributes to food affordability. By sourcing from a wide range of countries and suppliers, we mitigate the impact of supply shocks on prices. Competition between suppliers also gives consumers access to a wider range of food options across different price points.

At the same time, we do recognise that households may still face cost-of-living pressures. This is why we also extend direct support to households and we do this in three ways.

First, we provide temporary support to help Singaporeans with higher living costs, such as through CDC Vouchers, the Enhanced Budget 2026 Cost of Living Special Payment and additional U-Save rebates.

Second, we provide targeted assistance for households that face greater financial difficulty and regularly review these schemes to ensure they remain adequate. Through ComCare, we support low-income households with cash, so they can decide which food and meal options best meet their needs. We believe this approach offers greater flexibility than proposals suggested by Ms Joan Pereira and Ms He Ting Ru, which would channel support through designated outlets or specific food options.

Third, affordability is strengthened through partnerships beyond Government. The community and businesses play an important role in meeting local needs. For example, North West CDC's food vending machines provides $3 meals, while North East CDC's Warm Meals initiative delivers free warm meals through food lockers near rental flat residents. FairPrice Group's Rice Garden initiative also offers balanced, affordable meals for ComCare cardholders and seniors. Together, these initiatives complement Government support by addressing local needs in a targeted manner.

Beyond providing support to households, we must also ensure that affordable food is physically accessible. Ms Poh Li San's vision of a nationwide community dining ecosystem is one that we broadly share. Across Singapore, residents already benefit from a broad network of community dining options that provide affordable food close to home.

At the heart of this network are the over 120 hawker centres across Singapore. Our approach to hawker centres is deliberate and unique. We view them as social infrastructure that keeps affordable food options within the reach of Singaporeans, while strengthening community ties.

The Government continues to invest significantly in our hawker centres. We continue to build new hawker centres, particularly in growing towns underserved by food and beverage options. Unlike typical commercially run F&B establishments, the Government bears substantial upfront cost of building hawker centres and does not recover this cost from stallholders, given that hawker centres serve a wider public purpose. In addition, as announced at the Committee of Supply debates last year, we will invest in our existing hawker centres through the Hawker Centres Upgrading Programme 2.0, so that they continue serving the needs of Singaporeans.

We also focused on the viability of the hawkers themselves. In recent times, we recognise that stallholders have been facing higher operating costs from the Middle East situation. The Government has therefore announced a six-month support package for stallholders at hawker centres and markets to help offset rental costs and ease cost pressures. We will continue to track developments in the Middle East and their implications.

Beyond such support, we have a range of supply side policies for hawker centres. These aim to help hawkers manage costs and provide a conducive environment for hawkers to price food affordably.

On raw materials – there are bulk purchasing options available at some SEHCs, should hawkers wish to secure preferential rates.

On manpower, NEA has opened up manpower access by allowing Long-Term Visit Pass (LTVP) or LTVP Plus (LTVP+) holders with Letters of Consent to work as stall assistants since 2025.

On rents, NEA has policies in place to keep rents at hawker centres stable, including implementing cooling measures since 2024 to deter excessively high stall tender bids. The median rent for non-subsidised cooked food stallholders has remained relatively stable at around $1,250 per month for the last decade or so.

Finally, on productivity, NEA has programmes, such as the Productive Hawker Centres programme, to boost hawker stallholders' productivity. In addition, we must also recognise that hawkers need to price their food to reflect the cost and quality of ingredients, to earn a fair living as well. As global inflation pushes up the cost of ingredients, utilities and other inputs, some price increases may be unavoidable, even if hawkers wish to keep prices affordable for their customers. Ultimately, affordable hawker food options are only possible if hawkers themselves have sustainable business models.

Ms He Ting Ru asked whether the SEHC model remains necessary. I would note that SEHCs and our NEA-managed hawker centres start from very different circumstances. NEA-managed centres have an existing base of established hawkers and customers. In contrast, newer estates often start with neither of these. There is, therefore, a need to actively curate a suitable mix of stalls, build footfall and create a vibrant community space from the outset. This is where SEHC operators can add value, drawing on their F&B experience, they help with stall curation, placemaking and centre management while ensuring residents have access to affordable food options across different meal periods.

At the same time, to safeguard the social mission of SEHCs, stall rentals are capped at the average independently assessed market rent and operators must reinvest at least 50% of any operating surplus into the hawker centre. This helps to keep food affordable, while supporting the long-term sustainability of the centre.

Let me move on to food waste. Members have also spoken about encouraging continued and collective efforts to reduce food waste. We share this view. Every kilogramme of food we waste represents resources that have already gone into growing, processing and delivering that food. For Singapore, where most of our food is imported, every kilogramme wasted represents precious food that we worked so hard to secure.

Food waste has been a priority waste stream under our Zero Waste Masterplan in 2019 and it remains a priority today. In 2025, we generated 790,000 tonnes of food waste, accounting for about 11% of total waste generated in Singapore.

Ms Poh Li San, Ms Valerie Lee and Ms Lee Hui Ying have asked whether we could rescue or recycle more food waste and integrate food redistribution into our food security planning. To answer that question, we must first recognise that food waste takes many forms. It ranges from edible surplus food, expired products at supermarkets to kitchen scraps such as fruit peels and eggshells from households and restaurants to by-products of food manufacturers like spent grain. Whatever I said, these are distinct waste types, all requiring different solutions.

As a result, our approach follows a clear hierarchy: to first avoid food waste where possible, then keep edible food within the food system and finally recover value from food waste that simply cannot be avoided. We do this through four broad strategies: encouraging responsible consumption, redistributing edible surplus food, recovering value from unavoidable, clean and homogeneous food waste through valorisation, and recovering energy from the remaining mixed food waste that cannot otherwise be reduced, redistributed or valorised.

First, encouraging responsible consumption. The most effective way to reduce food waste is to avoid generating it in the first place. It starts with the choices we make every day. Buying only what we need, preparing portions we can finish, and making full use of the food that we buy.

To support this, NEA provides practical guides to help households and businesses reduce food waste and conducts public outreach campaigns such as the annual Say YES to Waste Less campaign to promote more mindful consumption habits. In 2025, the Say YES to Waste Less campaign reached almost four million consumers, with strong support from more than 260 partners. Our partners committed to various actions to reduce food wastage, such as reminding customers to order just enough food, planning meals in advance and utilising blemished food.

Second, redistributing surplus. While reducing food waste starts with responsible consumption, we recognise that there may be instances where businesses and households end up with more food than planned. Where food remains safe and suitable for consumption, we encourage it to be redistributed rather than discarded.

Community partnerships are key to this effort and MSE supports such community-led efforts through the SG Eco Fund. One such initiative is Food Rescue Sengkang, a programme which engages volunteers to collect surplus food from suppliers and retailers, therefore re-distributing them to residents.

Members have called for more Government support for food redistribution initiatives, including greater funding and better information flows. Indeed, timely information, effective coordination and practical logistical arrangements are critical. Today, enterprises and community initiatives are experimenting with digital platforms to improve visibility and matching of surplus food.

However, many of these enterprises have built their own networks and matching capabilities as part of their value proposition. Therefore, as we consider how information flows can be improved to enhance ecosystem-wide coordination, we must do it in a way that preserves the innovation and competitive strengths that underpin these precise solutions.

Members have also spoken about the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which was proposed through a Private Member’s Bill introduced by Mr Louis Ng, Ms Poh Li San, Ms Hany Soh and Mr Edward Chia. Since it was passed in 2024, the Act has created a more enabling environment for food redistribution by protecting food donors from liability if specific safety conditions are met.

Ms Lee Hui Ying asked about next steps. One area we are reviewing is date-marking practices. Food manufacturers use a variety of date-marks on their packaging, such as “Use By” and “Best Before”. There are currently no international guidelines on how long food remains safe for consumption beyond its expiry date. SFA is thus embarking on a study to assess the safety and feasibility of allowing food that has passed quality-based date-marks to be donated, while maintaining food safety standards at the same time. This could enable more edible food to be redistributed rather than discarded. SFA will share more details next year.

Third, recovering value from unavoidable food waste. While our priority has always been to prevent food waste at source, we also recognise that some food waste is unavoidable, such as certain by-products from food production and inedible portions of food. Where such food waste is relatively clean and homogenous, such as soybean pulp from food production, we seek to valorise it into useful products, such as animal feed, or even high protein snacks.

Fourth, recovering energy from food waste that cannot be valorised. Mixed food waste, such as leftovers from restaurants or household food waste mixed with general waste, is difficult to separate and recycle into useful products. In these cases, energy recovery is a much more suitable treatment option.

This is where our upcoming Food Waste Treatment Facility at Tuas Nexus will play a role. The facility will co-digest food waste with used water sludge to recover energy, allowing us to extract more value from food waste than through incineration alone. This facility is expected to commence operations in the second half of 2028. When fully operational, it will be able to treat up to 400 tonnes of food waste per day, representing approximately 18% of Singapore’s annual food waste generated. We are finalising the fee structure at Tuas Nexus and considering how best to encourage businesses to divert food waste for treatment instead of incineration.

More broadly, the Government supports ground-up efforts across the entire food waste management hierarchy, from reduction and redistribution to recycling. Through MSE's SG Eco Fund, we have supported over 70 community-led food waste reduction and recycling projects with around $3 million in funding. NEA's 3R Fund has supported around 30 food waste treatment projects with approximately $2.4 million in funding, while the Closing the Resource Loop Fund has committed around $5.3 million to food waste valorisation projects.

Members have put forward a range of suggestions to strengthen support for enterprises, food charities and community initiatives in this space. We will take these suggestions into account as part of our ongoing review of the Zero Waste Masterplan, including how we can better support innovative and impactful solutions to reduce food wastage and valorise food waste.

In closing, Mr Speaker, this debate has covered much ground. Minister Grace Fu has said that food resilience is ultimately about giving Singaporeans the confidence that food will be there when they need it. I would add that this confidence also rests on whether affordable food remains accessible and whether we make most of the food we have worked so hard to secure.

The Government will continue to do our part by strengthening our food supply, supporting affordability and reducing food waste. But building a truly resilient food system ultimately requires all of us. Businesses, communities and consumers each have a role to play. Buy only what we need. Support food redistribution efforts. Choose local when we can. These may seem like small actions, but taken together, that is how we build a food system that remains resilient for generations to come. With that, I support this Motion.

Ms Poh Li San.

Mr Speaker, food is a national pastime, but if our Food Story were only about that, it would be a woefully thin narrative. I hope that after the past four hours of debate in this House, deep conversations about food resilience, waste and accessibility to affordable food will continue and transform into a thick narrative of a richer Food Story, a narrative of the Four Pillars, the challenges our local farmers face, the growing food waste problem and the many initiatives to rescue and share food, especially with vulnerable groups.

I believe many of us will look at our dinner tonight a little differently. We may think about where the ingredients were imported from or if they were produced locally. We may wonder which flight or sea freight route was taken and what was the cold chain facility used to store the ingredients.

Most significantly, if we cannot finish the food, we will think about how much it adds to food waste? Perhaps, some of us may be concerned about the families facing financial problems, where every bite is a worry.

In fact, we should start educating our children in school on waste literacy so that they understand the importance of minimising food waste, and learn to take actions and changes in daily habits at an individual level. For instance, children should be taught basic formation on nutrition and knowledge like the differences between best before date, used by date and expiry date. That way, they can learn how to store food properly and know what food labels actually mean. Otherwise, it will be difficult for them to appreciate why reducing waste matters or how to distinguish between genuine needs and unnecessary consumption.

What does a thick narrative of our Food Story do for us? First, it paints a duty for the Government to ensure that food supply remains always accessible and affordable for Singaporeans, factoring in disruptions due to geopolitical conflicts and extreme climate events. Second, it reminds us that food resilience requires building up local food production capability and viability. Third, it requires the Government to design a more coordinated food import policy and food redistribution ecosystem, to reduce food waste at the systems level, so that we can have a robust infrastructure and strategy for the long term.

But this is not a story for the Government alone. Singaporeans too must hear the narrative. Food prices are a result of market forces, so external conflicts and extreme weather patterns can create a significant increase unexpectedly. While we cannot control food prices, we can certainly do more to ensure vulnerable groups will always have access to affordable food and to help them reduce food expenses.

The story must move more of us to rescue food and redistribute to those who need it. We must be creative about unlocking the hidden potential in unsold and rescued food, turn them into nutritious meals, and in so doing reduce food waste.

We ask Singaporeans to support our local farmers and buy Grow in SG local produce, even if the vegetables, fish and eggs may cost more. Our local farmers have to transform their operations and scale up production in order to stay competitive, to overcome tight land, water, energy and manpower constraints.

We hope to increase awareness about alternative proteins and encourage greater acceptance, so that the alternative protein industry can become a viable alternative food production capability to enhance our food resilience.

I would like to thank many different groups of people for their candid criticisms of the shortfalls in the current system, as well as their suggestions on how our food ecosystem can be strengthened and better coordinated.

First of all, I would like to thank all the participants of the three People Action's Party Climate Action Group workshops held in January, May and July this year. Many of them even took time off from their busy schedules to watch the debate live from the Viewing Gallery. We have learnt much about the complexities of our unique foodscape and met the people working hard in this industry. They have inspired us to move this Motion in Parliament. So, we brought their voices to this debate.

Next, I would like to thank hon Members of this House for speaking on this Motion and standing united on this very important and fundamental issue that concerns all Singaporeans and our future generations. I am particularly appreciative of hon Members of the Workers’ Party, Mr Dennis Tan, Mr Fadli Fawzi, Ms He Ting Ru and Mr Gerald Giam for their support and for several good suggestions made in their speeches.

Mr Dennis Tan shared useful suggestions on how we can build a living buffer for Singapore’s food supply. He proposed a national local produced marketplace and more tax relief for local farms.

Mr Fadli Fawzi proposed positioning Singapore as a food hub and also supported a nationwide food rescue ecosystem and also giving local farms longer leases.

Ms He Ting Ru asked the Government to provide more support for low-income families facing food insecurity in the face of food price shocks. She also suggested a more systematic approach to support hawkers. To keep hawker food prices affordable, she also highlighted the importance of retaining traditional wisdom of adaptive ways to reduce food waste.

Mr Gerald Giam proposed modernising Government procurement approach by leveraging institutional demand to secure offtake for local farmers.

I would also like to thank Nominated Member of Parliament Kenneth Goh for sharing his thought-provoking insights on the concept of portfolio resilience and how the alternatives in Singapore Food Story 2 would perform when the food system comes under stress.

Next, I would like to thank Members Joan Pereira, Cai Yinzhou and Lee Hui Ying for sharing their insights on other related food topics that may not have been specifically covered by the Motion statement. Their suggestions to help hawker food stay accessible, fish farming remain business viable and excess food management more effective have certainly made the debate richer and more comprehensive.

I would like to express our appreciation to Minister Grace Fu and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Goh Hanyan for their comprehensive replies that mostly addressed our queries and considered our proposals raised. Their clarifications on the considerations behind Singapore Food Story 2 and how diversification helps with competitive food pricing is also timely during this period as Singaporeans grapple with rising food costs.

Many thanks to the teams from SFA for working behind the scenes to ensure the four pillars in our Singapore Food Story 2 stay robust.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my teammates for working closely together over the past few months on this motion – GPC Deputy Chair Ms Nadia Samdin and GPC members Ms Valerie Lee and Mr Ng Shi Xuan. Each of us hold a deep conviction in the respective issues we spoke about, stemming from our own experiences on the ground and through our engagements with partners in the local farming community, the food charities, the food logistics companies and the innovators in food technology. We certainly learnt a great deal from our visits to the local vegetable and fish farms, to the rescued food collection centre, the cold room and the food lab. Mr Speaker, I would like to say a few words in Malay.

(In Malay): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] Mr Speaker, in this Motion, we urge the Government to strengthen food resilience and support efforts to reduce food waste through whole-of-society collaboration. The move is aimed at ensuring that Singaporeans continue to have access to affordable food amid geopolitical uncertainty and climate-related risks.

We have heard many insightful proposals, including those on supporting local farming, improving supply chain resilience, reducing food waste, producing alternative proteins and keeping hawker food affordable.

Singapore's food future will not be secured by one solution alone. It will take all parts of our food system working together. By increasing local food production, we strengthen our ability to produce more food here in Singapore. By building stronger supply chains, we ensure that food continues to reach our tables even when disruptions arise. By reducing food waste, we make better use of our available resources. By embracing and encouraging innovation, we create new possibilities for the future of our food.

Food resilience is not built only during a crisis; it is shaped by the choices and actions we take today. Together, we can build a stronger, more resilient food system for Singapore and stand ready to meet any future challenges.

(In English): If I may sum up, Singapore's food future will not be secured by one solution alone. It will take all parts of our food system working together.

By growing local, we strengthen our ability to produce food here in Singapore. By building stronger supply chains, we ensure food continues to reach our tables even when disruptions arise. By reducing food waste, we make better use of the resources we already have. And by embracing innovation, we create new possibilities for the future of food.

Food resilience is not built during a crisis. It is built through the choices we make today. Together we can build a stronger, more resilient food system for Singapore.

Mr Speaker, the thin narrative of our food story has not served us well. Affluence and modern-day conveniences may lead us to take food for granted and lead us down a path of apathy where food resilience and reducing food wastage are ignored as serious concerns.

We are a small city-state with multiple resource constraints for local food production. Let us eat our every piece of food with care, whether it is grown locally or imported. Let us support our local farmers and appreciate the workers in the food supply chain.

Let us keep our minds open and explore alternative food sources. Let us look out for fellow Singaporeans to ensure they always have accessibility to affordable food supply. Let us be good stewards of a sustainable food ecosystem.

Our Food Story is as rich as it is essential to our living. It is time we understood this thick narrative. [Applause.]

Are there any clarifications to seek of Ms Poh? No?

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved, "That this House calls for the Government to enhance food resilience and support efforts to reduce food waste through partnerships with all of society, so as to ensure Singaporeans have access to affordable food supply amidst geopolitical uncertainties and climate-related risks." – [Ms Poh Li San]