Singapore: Nine urban farms have been offered a total of $39.4 million by the Singapore Food Agency
Singapore’s first rooftop greenhouse farm, ComCrop, will build an additional 2,000 sq m of greenhouse space to produce 200 tonnes of leafy greens a year
By Shabana Begum
Straits Times
Sept 10, 2020
Excerpt:
Nine urban farms have been offered a total of $39.4 million by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) as part of efforts to support the growth of local agri-food enterprises and ramp up local food production over the next six to 24 months.
The amount was made available through the “30×30 Express” grant launched by SFA on April 17. The aim of the grant is to meet 30 per cent of Singapore’s nutritional needs with food produced locally by 2030.
More than 40 proposals were received by the closing date on May 29, and SFA said the nine farms used highly productive farming systems that could be constructed and implemented quickly to achieve high production levels.
The proposals were assessed on benchmarks such as productivity, project feasibility, economic viability and the farms’ capabilities.
SFA said it had to increase the original $30 million budget for the grant to almost $40 million to support the nine companies’ proposals.
Seven farms have accepted the SFA offer – vegetable farms ComCrop, Green Harvest, I.F.F.I, LivFresh, Genesis One Tech Farm and VertiVegies, and egg farm Chew’s Agriculture.
The funds will go towards projects such as building more greenhouses and bringing artificial intelligence (AI) to high-tech farms.
