Introduction
Mr Speaker, the motion before the House calls on 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 supplies amidst geopolitical uncertainties and climate-related risks.
Food resilience is an issue that deserves the attention of this House because food security is ultimately a matter of national security.
The conflict involving Iran has heightened uncertainty over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and contributed to concerns over energy and fertiliser prices, increase food production costs and place additional pressure on food-importing economies across Asia.
Countries have been already doing what countries do in a crisis: they stockpile, they restrict exports, they look after their own. We saw it in 2022 when Malaysia banned chicken exports. Several countries have taken measures affecting fertiliser production and exports, reflecting growing pressures on global food supply chains. With climate change, such occurrences may become more frequent.
Singapore imports over 90 per cent of its food; we spend billions on defence, on water security, on cybersecurity, because we understand that sovereignty depends on a certain level of preparedness. And yet, when it comes to the fundamental need of putting food on our plates, we remain overwhelmingly dependent on the goodwill and stability of others.
Mr Speaker, food security is national security. It is time we treated it as such. I therefore support this motion's call for stronger food resilience through partnerships across society. In my speech, I will focus on one important aspect of that effort: strengthening local food production not as merely as a substitute for import diversification, but as a critical pillar of our long-term resilience.
The Case for a Living Buffer
Singapore does not have a domestic fuel source, so we will always need to import energy, but we can grow a domestic food source. If the Government accepts that building fuel reserves is costly but necessary, then building a stronger local food industry - the one buffer we can actually grow on our own - deserves the same treatment.
I want to be clear: I am not arguing against import diversification. Singapore sources food from 187 countries. That is prudent and it should continue. However, in a major global disruption, countries may impose export restrictions, supply chains may be disrupted, and critical inputs such as fertilisers may become more expensive. In such circumstances, diversification remains necessary but may not be sufficient on its own. This is precisely why Singapore Food Story 2 adopts a multi-pillar approach built on import diversification, global partnerships, stockpiling and local production.
At the Committee of Supply debates in March, Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohamad was candid about what went wrong. He told this House: “We have learnt many lessons from our 30 by 30 initiative. While it had successfully catalysed local production growth, mainly focusing on one pillar - Grow Local - left us vulnerable to the very disruptions that we sought to address. A single-pillar approach, no matter how ambitious, cannot provide the food supply resilience that Singapore needs.”
Every source we diversify into is still subject to another country’s political decisions to prioritise their own needs. Boosting local food production does not replace diversification, but is a critical complement to add a layer to food security.
The Demand Bottleneck
This year, the Government has shifted targets from 30 by 30, by introducing the “Singapore Food Story 2”: 20 per cent of our fibre and 30 per cent of our protein to be locally produced by 2035.
And to be fair, the Government has invested a S$309 million research fund, a S$60 million technology transformation fund and S$39.4 million in express grants to help farmers produce food. That investment was necessary but growing food is only half the equation. You can help a farmer build the most advanced indoor farm in the region, and if no one buys the food at a price that covers the cost of growing it, the farm still goes under.
On this, SMS Zaqy also said: “Consumers and large buyers like supermarkets are willing to pay a reasonable premium for fresher, pesticide-free local produce that comes with guaranteed supply certainty.”
He is right: SFA’s survey in 2020 found that 94 per cent of Singaporeans were willing to buy local produce, yet only 65 per cent could even identify it when shopping. A YouGov survey in 2024 found that up to 59 per cent of shoppers were simply neutral - not opposed to buying local, just without a reason to choose it over the cheaper import beside it on the shelf. The willingness is there, we just need to harness it.
Consider what it actually takes for a Singaporean to buy local. You walk into a supermarket. Local produce is often not prominently differentiated or grouped together. There is no consistent placement, no easy way to know at a glance what is local. You might spot a locally grown kangkong, but it sits next to an imported head which is 40 percent cheaper. For price-sensitive Singaporeans, the cheaper option goes in the basket.
Farm-to-table purchases in Singapore are still treated as something extraordinary - a weekend outing to a farmers’ market, a feature in a lifestyle magazine, a one-off experience rather than a regular habit. Buying local should be normalised - it should be as ordinary and convenient as buying anything else. If we want Singaporeans to support local food, we need to make it easier for them to do so.
Farmers have voiced out their concerns in the media: Grace Lim of GroGrace, who recently closed her indoor farm despite producing 3,500 kilograms of greens a month with just 6 per cent wastage, told the Straits Times that selling vegetables in Singapore is “harder than selling a Rolls-Royce.” Karthik Rajan of LivFresh, Victoria Yoong of Atlas Aquaculture, Kai Wong of Ah Hua Kelong - farmers across the industry, from leafy greens to fish, have all cited the same barrier in various interviews: price competitiveness against cheaper imports.
And recently, we saw the starkest illustration yet when FairPrice, our largest retailer with around 160 outlets, will delist locally grown vegetables from at least three farms - Artisan Green, SG Veg Farms and Netafarm - as part of a "category assortment refresh”. When a farm's survival hinges on a single retailer's product review, it becomes a chokepoint that has a significant impact on their survival. An agri-food consultant quoted in the same report advised farms to diversify their sales channels, while conceding that many lack the scale and bargaining power to do so - a feast-to-famine cycle, in his words.
This encapsulates the volatile nature of the agricultural industry: their leases are short and renewal terms opaque, capital expenditure is high relative to returns, prices struggle to compete with imports, manpower costs continue to climb, and climate volatility threatens yields they cannot fully insure against.
Proposals
Mr Speaker, in the spirit of this motion's call for whole-of-society partnerships to strengthen food resilience, I would like to suggest two broad thrusts to better support our farmers. Together, they can reinforce local production and provide a stronger layer of food security for Singapore.
The first thrust: Creating a common marketplace dedicated exclusively to locally produced food.
This can be done via various channels.
First, a nationwide marketplace built and operated by the industry itself - in the form of a cooperative, a federation such as Singapore Agro-Food Enterprises (SAFEF), or a purpose-built nonprofit.
Let me commend the work that SAFEF has already done with the SG Farmers' Market, and the efforts of SFA in building the SG Fresh Produce label. These are encouraging starts; but these farmers' markets remain ad-hoc events.
What I am proposing is for this to be scaled up on a permanent and more structured basis: a co-op to coordinate between our farmers and Singaporeans who want to support local produce, creating a sustainable ecosystem rather than a series of one-off events.
Singapore has over a hundred wet markets across the island, managed by NEA, already serving as daily touchpoints for hundreds of thousands of households buying fresh food. A dedicated local-produce section or stall within each wet market, coordinated by the cooperative, would embed local food into the daily routine of ordinary Singaporeans. That will move awareness to habit; and habit is what sustains an industry.
This is not without precedent; Japan had a similar initiative which began with 200 housewives buying milk. It is now a billion-dollar cooperative. France’s AMAP network - Associations for the Maintenance of Smallholder Agriculture - started with a handful of consumer groups and now spans over 2,000 associations serving 320,000 consumers across 3,500 farms.
Mr Speaker, such partnerships between consumers, retailers, farmers, industry associations and public agencies are precisely the kind of all-of-society effort that can strengthen resilience while supporting more sustainable food consumption patterns.
Second, to guarantee offtake for farmers by requiring largest supermarket chains or SAF cookhouses to source a guaranteed minimum share of their fresh produce from local farms
The current arrangement between local farms and major supermarkets in Singapore operates largely on a consignment basis. The farmer pays a listing fee to place produce on the shelf. The supermarket takes a commission on sales. Unsold produce may be to the farmer's loss; stale vegetables are replaced at the farmers’ expense. The delistings by NTUC illustrate this perfectly: the retailer bears no commitment, so farmers are subjected to a level of uncertainty and risks.
A shift away from consignment model and towards purchase commitments - where the supermarket buys an agreed quantity at an agreed price and takes ownership at the point of purchase - would better support the viability of local farms. This is not without precedent.
Having major buyers dedicate even a small proportion of their fresh produce purchases to local farms could provide a critical layer of stability in an otherwise volatile industry. For farmers, the value lies not merely in the volume purchased, but in the certainty of demand. Such certainty enables them to invest, hire and expand production with greater confidence, strengthening Singapore's food resilience over the long term.
This translates to stability and certainty for farmers to invest, to hire, and to plan beyond the next harvest. That certainty is worth more than any grant. It may turn farming from a risky venture into a sustainable business.
This is also not without precedent. In Brazil, federal law mandates that at least 30 per cent of school meal expenditure must go to purchases from local family farmers. The programme serves 40 million children across 150,000 schools; the research is emphatic that the guarantee of a market caused farmers to expand, diversify, and invest. In New York, an executive order signed in 2023 directs state agencies to source 30 per cent of their food from local farmers by 2027; in its first year, the state exceeded its interim target. These mandates apply to public institutions, not private retailers. The principle is the same: when large buyers commit to local sourcing, farmers respond.
Having major buyers dedicate even a small proportion of their fresh produce purchases to local farms can create stronger partnerships and provide stability in an otherwise volatile industry.
The second thrust: provide greater tax relief for farmers
I am proposing three levers.
The first lever is the most direct: exempt all locally produced food carrying the SG Fresh Produce label from Goods and Services Tax.
While a 9 per cent saving does not automatically guarantee local produce a lower price than imports, the difference is not insignificant. Consider this: 250g of local kangkong retails at at least about S$2.50. With the exemption, the consumer pays S$2.29. Imported kangkong is about S$1.25 for 250g. The gap narrows a little but this narrowing, repeated across thousands of transactions every week, goes a long way toward lowering the barrier for consumers to choose local. And categorising this will not require any new mechanism given that the SG Fresh Produce Label is already established.
At current production levels - 8 per cent of fibre and 26 per cent of protein - the fiscal cost is likely to be modest relative to overall GST collections.
The second lever: a reduced corporate tax rate, or enhanced tax concessions, for SFA-licensed agricultural enterprises. Farming in Singapore is punishing on operating costs - land, energy, labour. The least the tax system can do is not add to the burden. A reduced corporate tax rate for qualifying farms, enhanced capital allowances for agricultural equipment, or deductions for energy costs would lower the cost of production and help to further close the price gap from the supply side.
This is not new either. The OECD's 2020 report on Taxation in Agriculture confirms that tax concessions specifically for agriculture are widespread. Among those, Ireland applies reduced income tax rates to farming income and offers stock relief - a 25 per cent deduction on the increased value of livestock and produce. Singapore already uses corporate tax incentives to attract industries it considers strategically important - from fintech to biomedical sciences. If food security is truly national security, then local agriculture should qualify for the same treatment.
The third lever is to incorporate an income-averaging mechanism for the agricultural sector. Farming income is inherently volatile. A disease outbreak, equipment failure, adverse weather or a spike in energy costs can turn a profitable year into a loss-making one. Allowing farmers to smooth taxable income across multiple years would help to moderate these fluctuations and improve business viability.
This is not an unusual idea. Variants of income averaging or income-smoothing mechanisms already exist in jurisdictions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands. Such schemes recognise a simple reality: farming income is often cyclical, and tax systems should take that volatility into account.
The cost of these levers is bounded by the size of the local produce market, which today is small. It grows only as local purchasing grows - which is to say, it grows only when the policy is working. Together, the levers will reduce the pricing of our local produce, encouraging a stronger following by Singaporean buyers.
Compare that to the hundreds of millions spent on the previous approach - grants that funded farms which subsequently closed, technology subsidies that produced write-downs, express funding for operations that entered liquidation. Those were bets on production. This is an investment in building habits - on both sides of the counter.
Conclusion
Mr Speaker, let me conclude; I support this motion because food resilience ultimately depends on more than government policy alone. It requires consumers, retailers, farmers, industry associations and public agencies all pulling in the same direction.
If we reach even half the revised fibre target - 10 per cent locally produced instead of 20 - that is roughly 50,000 tonnes of vegetables grown here every year that no export ban can touch, no shipping disruption can delay, and no foreign government can withhold.
The most resilient buffer against a food crisis is not just a warehouse full of rice. It is a country that grows its own food, buys its own food, reduces unnecessary waste, and builds the institutions, marketplaces and partnerships that make that possible.
Ninety-four per cent of Singaporeans say they are willing to support our farmers. I believe them. What they need is a channel, a reason, and a system that makes the right choice the easier choice.
Food security is national security. If we are serious about securing Singapore's food future, then we must strengthen the partnerships that connect producers, retailers and consumers, and build resilience together, one meal at a time.
