Does it really matter where our food is grown?

A stable supply through trade is the key to food security in land-scarce Singapore, though local farming has a role to play.

- Lawrence Loh and Florence Leong

When Malaysia halted chicken exports, supermarket shelves in Singapore emptied almost overnight.

Many Singaporeans rushed to stock up, unsure when supplies would return. That moment revealed how exposed a small, import-reliant nation can feel when key supply lines are disrupted.

But it also showed something else that is important: Our food security does not depend on growing everything ourselves. Instead, it depends on whether our supply pipelines stay open, diverse and reliable.

Singapore has long cherished a “30 by 30” target, which is to locally produce 30 per cent of its food needs, including fish, eggs and vegetables, by 2030.

In November this year, the target was revised to a more focused “fibre-20 + protein-30 by 2035” which entails producing 20 per cent of a smaller fibre category comprising leafy and fruited vegetables, beansprouts and mushrooms as well as 30 per cent of a protein category of eggs and seafood all by 2035.

The message is clearer today than ever — the country must be realistic in view of the trade-offs with more critical and competing uses of land resources. More fundamentally, the new mindset is that food security is about dependable access through trade, not about where the food is grown.

WHAT DOES FOOD SECURITY REALLY MEAN?

Singapore's local production figures underline this point. In 2024, we met just 8 per cent of our fibre needs and 26 per cent of our protein needs. The numbers are even lower for specific items such as vegetables (3 per cent) and seafood (6.1 per cent), with eggs being the only strong performer at 34.4 per cent.

These low numbers are not failures. They reflect our physical limits. Just as national defence does not require us to build our own tanks or aircraft, food security does not require Singapore to grow all its vegetables or fish. What matters is whether we can secure a stable supply through any combination of sources.