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Highlights of the week:
For more career opportunities from various industries, please access Career Axis.
Dear Students,
Did you know that by choosing locally produced food, you are playing a part in enhancing Singapore’s long term food security?
Aside from the Covid-19 pandemic, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the rising protectionism and tensions between countries in the geopolitical landscape have resulted in many disruptions and continues to pose uncertainty to the global supply chains. This was also raised during the National Day Rally by PM Lee, as he outlined how many countries are re-examining their supply chains to prioritise resilience and self-sufficiency.
Amid this current global environment, countries that are unable to produce their own food become inevitably vulnerable. To safeguard against any future disruptions and ensure our food security, Singapore deploys three key security strategies, namely, diversifying our imports sources, building up domestic production capabilities and national stockpiles, as well as deploying urban food solutions to produce overseas and exporting back to Singapore.
How does a highly urban and land-scarce city like Singapore conquer an endeavour that traditionally requires sprawling areas of open farmland? How can we leverage our existing ecosystem to strengthen our food supply resilience? To that, we look towards Indoor Vertical Farming. By bringing farms into buildings and making use of vertical space to cultivate crops, indoor farms maximise the agricultural potential of countries with limited land for food production.
Singapore Food Agency (SFA) aims to increase local food production to achieve the goal of “30 by 30” – building our agri-food industry’s capability and capacity to 30% by 2030, up from less than 10% today. To that end, SFA supports the growth of the local industry by developing spaces for farming, providing funding support, leveraging R&D, grooming local talent and rallying support for local produce.
Some of these farms like Sustenir Agriculture and Artisan Green have already put vertical farming into practice, producing fresh herbs and salad leaves from buildings within the city. Kalera will launch its first indoor farm in Singapore to grow and deliver nutritious, great-tasting, and pesticide-free leafy greens to local consumers. The 15m high, multi-layer, vertical farm will make it possible to grow crops locally, in any climate condition, all-year round.
Other startups like Indoor Farm Factory Innovation focus on developing
technologies and systems to refine the
Sing Grow uses techniques such as marker-assisted cross breeding and advanced technology including CRISPR-Cas9, to create their own proprietary crop varieties that are more energy efficient, faster growing and tastefully delicious.
As the agri-food industry continues to grow and transform, more talents with multi-disciplinary expertise in science, engineering, and info-communications will be sought-after to add value through careers in agriculture and aquaculture. Continue to keep a lookout for more career/internship opportunities at the companies aforementioned to get your foot into these “sprouting” enterprises!
Interested to learn more about building a career in this industry? Simply join my interest groups (in table below) with priority access to career opportunities and events or click here to book an appointment with me directly.
This week’s e-blast is prepared by:
Wilson Huang wilson.huang@ntu.edu.sg Biomedical Sciences |
Building & Construction |
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