New owners taking over 2 fish farming facilities left vacant by exiting firms

Two fish farming facilities that had been given up by firms exiting the local aquaculture industry have been acquired by local companies to pursue new farming ventures, The Straits Times has learnt.

- Shabana Begum Correspondent

One is a $65 million eight-storey vertical farm once owned by Apollo Aquaculture Group, which ran into financial difficulties in 2022.

It has now been taken over by AquaChamp, a land-based fish farm operator, and local construction and engineering firm HPC Builders. The building at Neo Tiew Crescent in Lim Chu Kang will be used to grow vannamei prawn and food fish.

The other farming facility - open-net cages in Singapore’s southern waters once owned by Barramundi Group - will be taken over by Singapore Aquaculture Technologies (SAT), which operates indoor floating farms in the Johor Strait north of the mainland.

While its fishes are currently fully reared in closed-loop recirculating aquaculture systems on floating barges, SAT intends to shift to a hybrid farming model when it acquires the deep-sea cages off St John’s Island.

This means that the young Asian seabass reared in the barges where farmed fish are kept from direct contact with the surrounding sea in indoor tanks - will be sent to the ocean cages to grow to harvest-size.

The latest developments show continued interest among local firms in producing food in Singapore, despite the setbacks plaguing the sector, with multiple farm closures reported since 2022.

On Nov 4, the Government said it will scrap the original 30 by 30 farming target of producing 30 per cent of food consumed in Singapore locally by 2030, for revised, scaled-down goals.

The aim now is to produce 20 per cent of the country’s consumed fibre, such as leafy vegetables, and 30 per cent of protein, including seafood and eggs, by 2035.

Apollo Aquaculture and Barramundi Group were among the high-profile farms in Singapore that had closed down or filed for liquidation in recent years.