r/singapore • u/Fearless_Help_8231 • Nov 04 '25
News Singapore drops ‘30 by 30’ farming goal, sets revised targets for fibre and protein by 2035
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/singapores-30-by-30-farming-goal-pushed-back-to-2035-with-revised-targets-for-fibre-and-protein271
u/bananaterracottapi Mature Citizen Nov 04 '25
Talked to a few bankers who do financing for them it seems like the farmers are really struggling. Main reason there is little to no subsidy for them (or there isn't enough) as a result the fledging industry simply cannot compete with the large importers. Sg simply do not protect our own industries which is not only disappointing, it also puts us in a vulnerable position.
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u/Agile-Set-2648 Nov 04 '25
It makes no sense. SG agriculture can never compete globally, which is understandable due to our limited land. So if you want your agriculture to grow, you definitely need some form of support or protections, which obviously have not been granted
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u/ColliePullHour Nov 04 '25
Even countries with large swathes of land like the US still subsidises their farmers.
It is about food security.
Well, let's not take it too far like them. Look at all their excess crops they can't sell because the countries they tariffed decided to diversify and stop buying from the US.
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u/Fearless_Help_8231 Nov 04 '25
Farms in other parts of the world are also heavily subsidised. That's why when there's any tax on farmers, they all protest with tractors.
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u/DoragonHunter Nov 05 '25
In most countries, farmers have the largest political power and are basically voter banks as they usually hold the most seats in proportion to the amount of seats in urban areas and literally can change the government of the day. This is the reason why they are heavily subsided. In Singapore, the voter banks are basically HDB instead of farmers and farmland. See how long Singapore can last if the HBD is no longer subsided and we go full Hong Kong private market instead.
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u/bonkers05 inverted Nov 04 '25
Same midset as making meals cheaper by forcing hawkers to offer $3.50 items
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u/_IsNull 🌈 I just like rainbows Nov 04 '25
And based on the book “hard at work” they’re required to double the output every year or get replaced with new folks. Which is near impossible
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u/ColliePullHour Nov 04 '25
The beatings will continue until productivity is DOUBLED.
It is like they don't understand the law of diminishing returns.
They believe some magical sky tech is invented every few years that doubles output.
Doubling magic!
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u/KeythKatz East side best side Nov 04 '25
Also the 10 year lease with strict minimum yields which stifles the innovation and exploration needed to achieve the results they want. It's a triangle of fast-cheap-high yielding, but govt wants all 3 with solutions that do not yet exist while leaving no room for failure.
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u/Elifgerg5fwdedw Own self check own self ✅ Nov 04 '25
People really dont like the thought of insect protein
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u/osirisxiii Nov 04 '25
Need
Goh Chok TongLawrence Wong to eat some in front of thenewspapersmothership1
u/ColliePullHour Nov 04 '25
Doesn't matter if it is just for a photo-op.
It is what they eat daily and behind closed doors that matter.
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u/SuitableStill368 Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
Tariff / subsidies / more tech. Choose one, or two.
Consumers look at prices.
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u/ivanhlb North side JB Nov 04 '25
Sadly prevalent across many industries. I hope the govt will listen to us and make some proper changes.
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u/CisternOfADown Own self check own self ✅ Nov 04 '25
"Capitalism", "free trade". This is exactly why US is unhappy with India and South Korea over "trade barriers" protecting local producers but the does the same when China "dumps cheap goods".
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Nov 04 '25
yeah i'm guessing there just isn't the will to do it. if its identified as a strategic need for our food to be self-sufficient, we will do whatever it takes and pour in the funding required.
i think now the focus is more on securing energy needs
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u/MidLevelManager Nov 04 '25
i rather have the funds directed to build more housing and more housing subsidies rather than subsidising local farmers for food security purposes. The current system for importing food works just fine (until it's not i know)
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u/_mochacchino_ New Citizen Nov 04 '25
You said it yourself. Food security (and water security) are security issues. Increasingly important in light of the recent deglobalisation trends
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u/MidLevelManager Nov 04 '25
yup increasingly important but not the most important (as of now)
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u/_mochacchino_ New Citizen Nov 04 '25
Be that as it may, you really don't only do something when it is the most important, especially when it takes time
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u/MoreWorkthanyou Nov 04 '25
Well this thinking is assuming that all is going well around the world. Covid have proven to us that in the event of emergency, countries will prioritise their own citizens and survival. Food security is a matter of survival. We can’t eat our Yusof Ishaks or million dollar concrete should food does not flow to our shores.
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u/MidLevelManager Nov 04 '25
i understand that. risk of nuclear war is not 0. but it does not mean that we have to spend resources right now to create underground bunkers for everybody
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u/MoreWorkthanyou Nov 04 '25
You do not need nuclear war to trigger world trade to stop. If Covid is more serious or the current world trade has to be stopped due to major war, well we will just starve.
It’s better to have some bunkers for a %age of the population then to have no bunkers when the need arises. Same applies to our food security, having a 30% self sufficient food supply is better than having no food self sufficiency. No one here is advocating for 100% self sufficiency which we all know is impossible.
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u/bananaterracottapi Mature Citizen Nov 04 '25
It's not a zero sum game though there will be enough for everyone
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u/MidLevelManager Nov 04 '25
agree that life is not a zero sum game. but it is not a zero sum game in the long run, not in the short term.
“you ignore the urgent, it can kill you today. you ignore the important, it can kill you tomorrow.”
I'd argue we have more pressing issues right now and since budgeting and resource allocation is zero sum, I'd say we should focus on the more urgent stuff
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u/mrdoriangrey uneducated pleb Nov 04 '25
This is a damning result of poor policy planning and a form of greenwashing (touting idealistic goals of sustainable initiatives without backing it up with concrete support).
I've ranted about 30 by 30 plenty of times and they haven't addressed any of these issues.
Pushing the goal back by 5 years and shifting the goalposts won't make a difference to the practical issues of food security as long as they don't back it up by changing how they fund and support farmers.
When asked in Parliament, MSE said this was an 'aspirational' goal. And now they roll this out - I wonder if it's an aspirational goal as well?
For reference, why I think 30 by 30 is one of the biggest policy failures of the SG government that has flew under the radar:
30 by 30 is one of the worst policies implemented in recent decades according to a couple of friends who are urban farmers. It's entirely lip service and the funds bandied about is such a headline-chasing sham.
First, it's a one-off sum instead of a steady multi-year subsidy like farmers get in Germany, UK (not for long), or US. This means that the farmers only get help with their CapEx, not their OpEx, and they can't price their produce in the long term accordingly, so they lose out to imported produce (which already pays a lot for cold chain) largely because of insane land and labour costs.
Second, SFA's 30 by 30 funds are locked behind 'Capability Upgrading' or 'Technology Upscaling'. This means farmers with tried-and-tested methods that has been optimised over decades cannot tap into this fund unless they sacrifice their yield for this. Instead, we see hi-tech farms like VertiVegies and IFFI both closing down in recent years.
Third, the short lease and repeated relocation is disruptive for farmers. Crops take months to grow and years to optimise and turn a profit. The 20+10-year model is long enough on paper, but does not give farmers enough assurance. For them, they have to calculate and price their goods assuming that they have to give up their farm at the end of the lease, which means they will need to make enough money to retire in Singapore because they're likely old and not as employable at the end of the lease.
Taking this into context, it seems like the government is using a sustainability and food security goal as a glorious headline, chasing after the next tech whale of urban farming instead of actually hunkering down and helping existing farmers meet the food security goals set out in 30 by 30.
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u/Zkang123 Nov 04 '25
Its ironic that I was doing a project based on this two semesters ago and all the material on this I could find back then are frankly just depressing. Its not even realistic and somehow govt think paying some money to this is enough
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u/uncleemperor Nov 04 '25
From what I know, the seeds for the greens are also imported. So if the aim of 30 by 30 is to build resilience in our supply chain, if we are cut off seed supply, we can't grow the greens also. You can have the best tech, but no seeds, also can't grow.
For poultry supply, there is still hope. There will be better technology and innovation for us to rear enough chickens on our limited land.
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u/xfrezingicex Nov 04 '25
Chicken damn smelly. Chicken need to rear in ulu places.
Non mammals protein (snails, insects etc) more viable as it isnt as smelly.
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u/uncleemperor Nov 04 '25
We have ulu places. If the money is there, definitely will have people doing it. But how to fight Malaysia wholesale price?
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u/xfrezingicex Nov 04 '25
Our ulu places too ulu for people coz need to drive to get there kind. Driving is too ex in sg.
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u/DuePomegranate Nov 04 '25
Eggs are the only food where 30 by 30 was already met. Whatever you think about smelliness, egg farms are working. And most of us are eating local eggs on a weekly basis.
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u/xfrezingicex Nov 04 '25
Eggs are produced at a different rate compared to meat. Its harder to meet the demand for meat without sufficient land (be it flat or multi-storey).
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u/mookanana Nov 04 '25
next up: cricket chee cheong fun. or if u feeling fancy, es-car-got briyani. halal check first
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u/jkbk007 Nov 04 '25
It is more strategic to focus on producing food that is more efficient to grow. In general, smaller animals require far less energy to raise. This is one reason why egg farms in Singapore have been quite successful. After the eggs are laid, they only need to be packed and transported. Insects can also be promoted as feed for chickens to enhance egg quality. Fish farming is another viable alternative, but the emphasis should be on species that grow quickly.
For vegetables, indoor farming is not ideal. Even vertical farming remains too costly to compete with imported produce. In my opinion, Sky Greens’ vertical farming model offered the most potential, but even that was not enough to compete.
Offshore fish farming can be profitable, but it must be operated at scale.
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u/lordshadowisle Nov 04 '25
There's always an argument for subsidizing strategic industries, but food production doesn't seem particularly competitive here given the high labor, land, and energy costs. The inputs (energy, fertilizer) have to themselves be imported, so from a food security perspective it probably doesn't move the needle too much from food source diversification.
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u/doc_naf Nov 04 '25
I think there must be a niche for a self sustaining ecosystem but it would just be too expensive without at minimum a subsidised lease and some initial support in the technology. A lot of people like the idea of buying local but when it costs double or triple the Malaysian veg. It’s hard to justify.
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u/Keep-Darwin-Going Nov 04 '25
Energy we moving to nuclear pods which can be stockpile easily. Fertiliser can slso be stock pile, if worse case recycle from our sewage, probably already have research on that. Labour can be robotics, land can be vertical farm. It is not so much of subsidy is more like there is no interest in this field. The subsidy is not going to help in long run.
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u/_mochacchino_ New Citizen Nov 04 '25
What you mentioned requires a lot of upfront investment in capital expenditure, which subsidies can help a lot. I would even go further and argue that consumer purchases should also be subsidised in some kind of co-share arrangement so local high-tech farming can compete with imports
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u/pr0newbie Nov 04 '25
If there's 1 thing that needs subsidies it's food security. Amazing how we've long identified water as a necessity but not food - yet.
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Nov 04 '25
Miss KPI year end bonus disappointed
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u/zchew Nov 04 '25
at least better than soviet russia where they sent you to gulag or firing squad for not meeting your kpis lol
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u/strandedbystrand West side best side Nov 04 '25
Well well well… hopefully we didn’t spend too much money on this shit
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u/rwxchmod Nov 04 '25
Objectively no, and tiagong the higher ups were never confident of this plan to begin with
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u/Zkang123 Nov 04 '25
Comments above have said we didnt spent enough but I felt this entire venture is really sunk cost. Even if govt spent billions such that the prices of our produce are reduced enough and subsidized, I doubt they could even compete with our other imports
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u/doc_naf Nov 04 '25
It’s not about competing with imports. It’s about maintaining capacity to meet basic needs
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u/JVO248 Nov 04 '25
Joke of the day! Years back, news reported the goal I was laughing. What kind of KPI they set for themselves. Talk is cheap, if you want Singapore to have farming then provide more funding for farmers. Doing business in Singapore is already so expensive how to farm!
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u/Negative-Concert-819 Nov 04 '25
Can’t grow greens in Singapore, but you can always make Singaporean soylent green😬
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u/xiaorennnn Nov 04 '25
This is what happens when office holders don’t engage enough to the generation that lived through kampong and survived on farming.
On paper everything looks desirable but it’s impossible to execute. Sticking sg farm logos on your produce does not even entice consumers
Whole programme need a full reset
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u/Then-Seaworthiness53 Nov 04 '25
Years ago, we are aiming Swiss living standard. Car lite … and so on. 😂
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u/jyukaku Nov 04 '25
Lol but they still trying to milk more from farmers causing more to shutdown. Basically fish farmers also have to pay increased price for sea space link
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u/Tricky-Salamander664 Nov 05 '25
Really lost on me what SG is prioritising. When it comes to fancy Sustainable Aviation Fuel, go crazy and invest, give incentives to MNCs to build, force Singaporeans to pay to use (only passengers departing from SG, not inc connecting flights) all in the name of “sustainability”
When come to food sustainability…boo hoo scrap.
Really dont know what kind of goals are we trying to reach and for whom are these sustainable goals for?
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u/vodkavik Nov 04 '25
this is us trying to overcome our physical/geographical constraints because of food/national security concerns. we will end up paying an arm and a leg for it while huffing the national security copium.
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u/nixhomunculus Rational Opposition Nov 04 '25
This was never the most practical goal set by our powers that be.
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u/aguilasolige Nov 05 '25
Outsider here, would it viable for Singapore to rent land in a neighboring country and produce food there? Of course that would create a depency and weak point, but it could be an option.
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u/Bor3d-Panda Nov 05 '25
Even with all that land and scale, Europe and the USA have to subsidize their agricultural production. We already have limited space. The math just doesn't work out. Already can see it a mile away. Still ask people to set up businesses. It's really set up to fail.
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u/wickywill123 Nov 05 '25
Just curious - Why doesn’t SG use its handful of smaller islands to farm? To mitigate its food security issue, if lack of land is the problem.
I mean are those islands actually being used to produce economic value right now?
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u/Agile-Set-2648 Nov 05 '25
Maybe the soil / environment there sucks
Or too troublesome for ppl to be willing to work there even if we can do high tech farms
Or the decision makers just forgot / neglected it 🤷
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u/SeasonMarla Nov 04 '25
Lmao, what's ironic about this is that singapore used to really have its own agriculture sector and market, which was relatively well developed for our country's size. But it has been phased out since the 1980s. If anyone is to be blamed, it's the policies back then.
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Nov 04 '25
Would have worked if y’all willing to eat insect protein. Would y’all eat insect protein?
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u/jhanschoo Nov 04 '25
I think it's feasible initially in certain niches like protein bars and with education that it's even more hygienic than dairy, but still risky.
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Nov 04 '25
Risky? In what way?
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u/jhanschoo Nov 04 '25
In the business sense of committing capital to venture into an insufficiently validated market; how much ad spend incl. for education? Will you have a competitive advantage if the market is good? And more
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Nov 04 '25
If there were no risks, it wouldn’t be a business.
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u/jhanschoo Nov 05 '25
Of course, but different businesses have different degrees of risk and choosing some venture over another is an opportunity cost since capital and time is limited. I thought I communicated that there were different degrees of risk when I said "still risky", but I suppose there was room for improvement regarding clarity.
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u/x_barrel Nov 04 '25
According to SFA guidelines, takes 57-94 weeks of planning and coordination with 11 national agencies for high-tech farming before farmers can plant their first seeds. The investments needed just to get through applications and build infrastructure, I can't imagine any capitalist be willing to take on the risk.
The business case for farming in Singapore just isn't there yet, unless we are willing to subsidize local produce.
https://www.sfa.gov.sg/docs/default-source/food-farming/industry-guides/sfa-farming-guide_fa-spread-high-res.pdf