(Adds Temasek official in paragraph 15)
By John Geddie and Edgar Su
SINGAPORE, May 30 (Reuters) - Singapore, the tiny Southeast
Asian city-state, is an unlikely place for a farming revolution.
With tiered fish farms, vegetable plots atop office
buildings and lab-grown shrimp, the island aims to beef up its
own food production and rely less on imports to feed its 5.6
million people.
Singapore produces about 10% of its food but as climate
change and population growth threatens global food supplies, it
aims to raise that to 30% by 2030 under a plan known as
'30-by-30'.
The challenge is space.
With only 1% of Singapore's 724 sq km (280 sq miles) land
area devoted to agriculture and production costs higher than the
rest of Southeast Asia, the pressure is on new urban farmers to
answer the government's call to "grow more with less".
"Whenever I talk about food security in Singapore, I tell
folks don't think land - think space. Because you can go upwards
and sideways," said Paul Teng, a professor specialising in
agriculture at Nanyang Technological University.
Sustenir Agriculture is one of more than 30 vertical farms
in Singapore, which has seen a doubling in so-called sky farms
in three years.
The hydroponic farm grows non-native varieties like kale,
cherry tomatoes and strawberries indoors under artificial lights
and sells the produce to local supermarkets and online grocers.
Sustenir raised S$22 million ($16 million) from backers
including Singapore state investor Temasek TEM.UL and
Australia's Grok Ventures last year, which will be used for an
expansion in Singapore and opening in Hong Kong.
Temasek is also providing funds to Apollo Aquaculture Group
which is building a S$70 million highly-automated, eight-storey
fish farm. Apollo says the new farm will deliver more than a
twenty-fold increase in its annual output of 110 tonnes of fish.
"It is too unpredictable to do things now in the traditional
way," said Apollo CEO Eric Ng, citing problems with algae blooms
in recent years that have wiped out farmers' fish stocks.
Singapore has not given a total pricetag for '30-by-30',
first unveiled in March, but it has various funding schemes.
Aside from Temasek, the government has put aside S$144
million for research and development into food, and S$63 million
for agriculture firms to use technology to boost productivity.
It also plans to build an 18-hectare (44 acre) agri-food
site for indoor plant factories and insect farms by mid-2021.
"Investor interest in urban agriculture is rising as
environmental pressures and technology developments catalyse new
ways of producing food locally," said Anuj Maheshwari, a
managing director at Temasek who focuses on agri-business.
'LEAP OF FAITH'
Not everyone is convinced by the focus on high-tech.
Egg farmer William Ho, 53, says the government is putting
too much stock in new agri-tech firms with no track record.
"Many of them have failed. That's why I'm always asking the
government why don't you invest in us old-timers. We are more
practical," he said.
A major hurdle for urban farmers, said Teng, are the
expensive inputs like technology that puts their products out of
reach for many consumers.
One Singapore firm still in its infancy but hoping to reach
a mass market is Shiok Meats, which aims to be the world's first
to sell shrimp grown from cells in a lab.
The process, which is harmless to animals, involves cells
grown in a nutrient solution in tanks. After four to six weeks,
the fluid is siphoned off and leaves behind raw shrimp mince.
Shiok is backed by Henry Soesanto, CEO of Philippines' Monde
Nissin Corp IPO-MNI.PS , which owns British meat substitute
firm Quorn.
Shiok co-founder Sandhya Sriram hopes to tap into the
enthusiasm for alternative protein that propelled the market
value of U.S.-based Beyond Meat BYND.O to more than $5 billion
after its debut this month. After raising $4.6 million in seed funding this year, Sriram
said Shiok Meats plans to sell its product in one or two premium
restaurants by late 2020, and by 2030 hopes to produce enough
shrimp meat to feed Singapore.
"It ('30-by-30') is achievable but it depends which part of
the food industry they want to take a leap of faith on," she
said.
($1 = 1.3823 Singapore dollars)