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Singapore encourages home gardening with edibles

Singapore’s Second Minister for National Development and Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee said that the program will bring nature into homes and contribute towards building social resilience and self-reliance.

“We can grow our own edible plants, enjoy the therapeutic benefits of gardening, and use this as an opportunity to teach our children about the value of food,” he said.

By Wang Lili
Xinhua|
2020-06-20

Excerpt:

According to him, this program will also strengthen the social resilience and contribute to the food resilience, adding that it is aligned with Singapore’s national food security strategy unveiled last year to produce 30 percent of Singapore’s nutritional needs locally by the year 2030.

He added that with the improvement of the COVID-19 situation in Singapore, they will launch more community gardens and allotment gardens across Singapore to grow edible plants, including herbs and spices.

Also on Friday, local media quoted Masagos Zulkifli, Minister of the Environment and Water Resources, as saying that growing more food locally and increasing the number of import sources are ways that Singapore safeguards its food security in the face of shocks like COVID-19.

“(There have been) price fluctuations, supply disruptions, and we therefore have been thinking about what we have to do to tackle this,” said Masagos in an interview with The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao.

Singapore imports food from more than 170 countries and regions, with only 10 percent of the food being provided locally. Masagos said they would speed up the process to see more food produced domestically.

Read the complete article here.