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Monday, June 30, 2014

Eco-Conversation on Food Security @ SMU (24 May)

Nature Society, SMU Verts and Green Future Solutions jointly organized an Eco-conversation at SMU on 24 May from 9am till 1pm. The title of the event is “Conversations on Sustainable Singapore – Food Security”. The objective of the event is to gather the participants’ thoughts on Food Supply / Food waste, and to generate constructive and specific suggestions for the Sustainable Singapore Blue print review conducted by Ministry of Environment and Water resources. (MEWR)

Earth Society members signed up and participant in this meaningful conversation. The conversation consists of 2 presentations by invited speakers, small group discussions and a group presentation at the end of the event. 
About 40 participants attended the event. The event was graced with the presence of NMP Ms Faizal Jamal.
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During the event, Mr Melvin Chow (Director of Planning and Management Department in AVA) presented on the current food situation in Singapore.
We currently have 50 Vegetable farms, 3 Chicken egg farms and 127 fish farms in Singapore producing 12% of our vegetables, 26% of the eggs we eat and 8% of the fish we eat. The majority of the food we eat (about 90%) are imported from other countries.

Mr Chow informed that as our food supply depends heavily on imports, Singapore is vulnerable to global food situations such as spikes in food prices, reduction of food supplies due climate change etc. Singapore’s key strategy to ensure food security is to diversify our food sources. (eg. We import chicken from A/B/C countries. If a disruption occurs in A country, we can still import chicken from B and C countries.)
Mr Chow recommended that we as individuals can increase Food Security by reducing our food waste and buying local farm produce. 

Mr Chow’s presentation slides are available at :

Mr Allan Lim, Urban farmer and founder of the Living! Project, was the 2nd speaker in the event. He shared on Comcrop (Community Crop) rooftop farming in *SCAPE building in heart of Orchard Road. The rooftop farm is a 6000 square foot commercial farm that uses aquaponic system for farming.

In the aquaponic system, fishes in a fish tank produces wastes that provide nutrients for the vegetables that are grown in hydroponic vertical racks. The water from the vegetable hydroponic racks which have higher dissolved oxygen content are then channelled back to the fish tank for the fishes. This forms a self-sustaining close-loop system.

Every week, students from Victoria Junior College and Singapore Polytechnic, as well as the elderly from Tampines-Changkat Constituency, come together to tend to the vegetables at the rooftop farm.

The rooftop farm targets to grow up to 15,000 fresh vegetables each month!

More info on Comcrops rooftop farm can be found at their website:
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During the small group discussion/ presentation, Earth Society members suggested to educate our Singapore population on reducing meat consumption by half to reduce our reliance on meat imports and to improve Food Security in Singapore.

We also suggested that Health Promotion Board can extend the Health Promoting School Canteen program (a program that encourages students to eat a healthy diet consisting of ¾ fruits/ veggies/grains and ¼ meat) to the working adults.

Both suggestions were placed in their final report for Food Security conversation:
The final report would be submitted to MEWR, NEA and AVA for their reference and consideration for action.

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