The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has awarded over $23 million in funding to 12 projects under the grant call for research and development (R&D) in ‘Sustainable Urban Food Production.' The grant call is under the Singapore Food Story (SFS) R&D Programme which aims to develop the local agri-tech R&D ecosystem and sustainable urban food solutions to support Singapore’s “30 by 30” goal1 for food security. The grant call will provide funding support for innovative research projects that address challenges facing the tropical aquaculture and urban agriculture industries.
Among the 12 awarded proposals, eight are in the domain of aquaculture and four in urban agriculture.
These proposals incorporated innovative ideas and solutions that are aligned with the grant objectives to increase the productivity of local food producers, taking into consideration factors such as cost-effectiveness, resource use efficiency, sustainability and climate resilience. The proposals also demonstrated good potential to be scaled up and applied in Singapore and other countries based on their track record, industry experience and research team.
The urban agriculture proposals
The first one is called "Genetic improvement of indoor farming crops", by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL).
The second one is called "Improving yield, cultivating efficiency and nutrient quality of hydroponically-grown crops with rapid testing of growth conditions and gene expression analysis" by Nanyang Technological University (NTU), ComCrop, and Artisan Green.
The third one is called "real-time crop health monitoring and nutrient analysis system for waste reduction and productivity improvement in hydroponic cultivation" by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Panasonic Factory Solutions.
The fourth one is called Urban-metabolic Farming-module (UmFm): a novel farming module towards eco-resilient megacity farmscape in 2030, by Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT);, Tohoku University, Netatech, and Tampines Town Council.
Singapore Food Agency
