Covid-19 ushers in planting season for local farms, but costs, cheaper imports hobble prospects

Singapore

THE time is ripe to step up local food production, some local farmers and food security experts say, even as competitive pricing and boosting demand from local consumers are stubborn challenges to overcome.

With the Covid-19 outbreak sounding alarm bells on food security around the world, such concerns have particular resonance in Singapore, where more than 90 per cent of food is imported.

Contingency planning over the years has helped diversify food sources and provide access to affordable produce, but the ongoing pandemic underscores the importance of local food production, said the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) in recent statements.

Last year, the government set a goal of raising Singapore's homegrown produce from the current 10 per cent to 30 per cent of total food needs by 2030 - dubbed the "30 by 30" goal. It has unlocked alternative spaces to grow food in Singapore - including rooftops, vacant buildings, and even the sea - while helping local farms and food companies to leverage technology.

Now, funding for local farmers has been accelerated in response to the Covid-19 crisis, with the SFA setting aside S$30 million in April to help increase local food production over the next six to 24 months.

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There are 227 licensed food farms in Singapore as of financial year 2018, according to the SFA's recent annual report, including 111 coastal fish farms and 83 vegetable farms.

While heartened by support on these fronts, farmers The Business Times spoke to still worry: How can Singaporeans be encouraged to buy local?

Kenny Eng, who runs his family's horticulture and landscaping business Nyee Phoe, lamented that consumers are still drawn to imported produce for their low prices as a result of lower-cost inputs.

As an example, Mr Eng said despite producing just about a quarter of the country's consumption of eggs, local egg farms are still hard-pressed to sell off their homegrown stock.

A quick check in major supermarket chains showed that locally produced eggs are over 50 per cent more expensive than those from across the Causeway.

For instance, Pasar brand eggs produced in Malaysia retail in FairPrice supermarkets at S$4.50 for 30 eggs (15 cents per egg), while locally produced eggs from the same brand cost S$2.35 for 10 (24 cents each).

The price difference can be smaller for other produce.

A 220g packet of xiao bai chye from Singapore is S$0.90. A 200g bag of the same vegetable from Malaysia is S$0.80, checks on the FairPrice website showed.

Professor Paul Teng, a senior fellow focusing on food security at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), said he is hopeful that local farmers can meet the "30 by 30" production goal in 10 years. "But whether what we produce is affordable is a different question."

He added: "Singaporeans in general are still quite price sensitive, especially the heartland buyers. We are always going to face this battle, because of the high cost of farming and producing food in Singapore."

Mr Eng, 46, said: "It's the people who have to take ownership of this nationwide agenda. The government can only do so much. If people don't buy local, what incentives do the next generation of farmers have to continue farming?"

He cited Oh Chin Huat Hydroponic Farms as one example of a legacy farm that will soon shut, as relocation costs are too much to bear.

Land costs have been a bugbear, though some farms here have been employing a technique known as vertical farming, through which multiple layers of vegetables are planted over the same land area. But with local farms not running at scale, higher production costs remain an issue.

An RSIS study in 2018 on ways to scale up urban argriculture in Singapore said that financing for farms is a "critical component" behind profitability of producing vegetables on the land tendered out by the authorities. Cheaper financing is key, given the high costs to set up and maintain indoor agriculture facilities, where local farmers manipulate the growing conditions to boost the crop yield.

While Peter Barber, chief executive officer of ComCrop, shares the government's vision in making more alternative spaces available for farming - ComCrop's 36,000 sq ft farm will span six greenhouses on the rooftops of a JTC development in Woodlands - he also noted administrative difficulties he encountered in setting up his farm.

"The regulations we had to adhere to were based on building codes for industrial factories, many of which are not relevant to rooftop farming. It cost us a lot of time and money to get various approvals. All these roll up into the costs of producing our crops," said Mr Barber, a specialist in urban rooftop farming.

Jose Ma Luis Montesclaros, who specialises in modelling public policy systems with a focus on food and climate change, also suggested the idea of exempting farmers from property taxes on manufacturing machinery to lower costs.

The current tax is a potential barrier to larger-scale utilisation of farming technologies, such as indoor vertical farms, said Mr Montesclaros, an RSIS associate research fellow.

Food security experts agree that the larger challenge to Singapore's food resilience also lies with demand, not supply.

Singapore has been fortifying its food resilience for decades, said Cecilia Tortajada, a senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. More recently, the SFA has also asked suppliers of essential items that do not fall under the national stockpile scheme to ensure viable business continuity plans, such as by signing retainer contracts or boosting their buffer stockpiles.

She pointed out there is at least one local producer that has the capacity to increase production of eggs by 60 per cent. "However, it does not believe that there will be demand, given that eggs from Malaysia and Ukraine are typically 20 per cent cheaper."

The current crisis is a clarion call for Singaporeans to buy local, the farmers said. ComCrop's Mr Barber also called on retailers to do more to support local producers.

"We should be having Singapore produce front and centre in major supermarkets. Just having community events like farmers' markets is not enough," he said. "We need to make sure Singapore consumers can find competitively priced local produce in the grocery stores they frequent."

A FairPrice spokesperson told BT that locally farmed fish and vegetables each make up about 10 per cent of the chain's fish and vegetable supplies.

About half of the eggs it stocks are sourced from local farms. Sheng Siong and Dairy Farm Group, which runs the Cold Storage, Marketplace and Giant supermarket chains, did not respond to BT's queries.

Second-generation quail farmer William Ho, who runs Ho Lian Wah Hang Farm, is hopeful that local farmers can live up to the "30 by 30" goal.

"A lot depends on local consumers. Singaporeans are lucky, food prices have been competitive as a result of furious undercutting," he said. But price should not be the only factor for consideration, he said, adding that local produce is safe, fresh and of high quality.

Still, the 54-year-old has seen some Singaporeans gradually warming to supporting homegrown produce, despite the heftier price tags.

"Five years ago, for every 10 people who buy our eggs, one will ask where this came from and nine will ask how much it is. Now, two out of 10 will be concerned about where it's from," he said.

"I think people are slowly paying more attention to local produce. You cannot build Rome in one day."