Speech by SMS Desmond Lee at the International Aquaculture Singapore Conference
Oct 8, 2015
Good morning. I am happy to be here with all of you at the inaugural International Aquaculture Singapore Conference and School of Applied Science Show. I was telling Principal that it is nice to be back here in the same hall, where I had my lectures some 15 years ago. As a law student, we spent six months in Temasek Polytechnic and it is nice to be back here.
Importance of the local aquaculture industry
In Singapore, as you all know, we import almost all of our food, so it is important to diversify our food sources. While that is our main food security strategy, we need to raise local food production to buffer against the uncertainty of overseas sources. For example, every now and then, where we import most of our fish - Malaysia, which provides around a quarter of our fish supply, from time to time there is food supply disruptions, for various reasons. So it is always good to have at least some level of self-sufficiency in certain food items.
In 2009, only 4% of the food fish consumed in Singapore was produced here in Singapore. Our target is 15%. It is an ambitious target, but we are making good progress. Today, some 8% of our fish consumption is produced locally.
Our target is achievable, but to do so, we need to address 3 key challenges here in this city state.
Challenges in the local aquaculture industry
Embracing innovation and technology
The first is to encourage our Singapore aquaculture industry to embrace innovation and technology. With limited land and limited territorial seas, we should leverage on innovation and technology to help raise fish farm productivity and to better protect our farmers and their produce from environmental risks.
To help our local fish farmers improve productivity, AVA undertakes R&D at its Marine Aquaculture Centre on St John’s Island, developing technologies behind large-scale hatcheries and higher fish production that our fish farmers can adopt.
AVA also provides funding to help our farmers undertake their own research and invest in technology. The $63 million Agriculture Productivity Fund launched last year, which is a major upgrade from AVA’s earlier Food Fund, subsidises up to 70% of our food fish farmers’ investments in technology, and up to 90% in R&D.
In addition, AVA launched the certification scheme for Good Aquaculture Practices for Fish Farming (GAP-FF) last year. This scheme promotes good farm management practices to enhance quality fish production.
Sharing knowledge and experiences
The second challenge is of course, knowledge sharing. The results of R&D, not really useful if you keep it in the books. It needs to be shared, and needs to be disseminated among the local aquaculture community as widely as possible.
Likewise, the experience of local fish farmers who have adopted technology should be shared, to demonstrate the potential of these technologies, help others to learn from their mistakes, and lead them.
This conference, with its theme, “Innovations for Sustainable Aquaculture”, is certainly a step in the right direction. I am happy to see many of my AVA colleagues and members of the aquaculture industry here, both locally and from around the world, ready to build new friendships and share your knowledge and your experience. With the distinguished speakers present for the conference, I am confident that there will be a rich and bountiful harvest of aquaculture knowledge.
Mindset change
However, while technology, funding, and know-how are necessary, they are not on their own sufficient. The crucial hurdle is that the farming industry must be willing and prepared to make the change. The third and most impactful challenge is therefore changing mindsets. When I joined the Ministry of National Development two years ago, I had the privilege of visiting some land fish farms. CEO of AVA, Poh Hong, brought me to visit fish farms that had leveraged on technology and know-how to build their farms on the basis of R&D, using the food fund. Speaking to the farmers, you could see how they could run their business in a traditional way, while improving their produce, improving their harvest and improving their quality of life, using technology. That is the result of mindset change.
Earlier this year, as part of the Pulau Ubin Project, I also happened to kayak off the coast of Ubin and I kayaked to one of the fish farms, the kelongs of Ubin, and informally visited some of the fish farmers with some of our community leaders. I saw their idyllic lifestyle and their rootedness in tradition. They are on the cusp of technology change, yet wanting to retain their roots in traditional farming. I think that is the frontier that we need to work with. I am sure a number of our fish farmers in the kelongs must be wondering if the use of technology will better their lives, and the answer must be a resounding ‘yes’.
Mindset change is the hardest challenge that any industry must overcome in order to transform. Change is hard. It involves risks and uncertainty, which is particularly hard when livelihoods may be at stake.
In fish farming, there are many optimistic signs that the industry’s mindset is changing. Some fish farmers have recognised the role of technology and employed innovation in their operations. For example, the Metropolitan Fishery Group employs a high-tech water monitoring system to maintain the right levels of oxygen in the waters. This system would send an alert to the farmer if the oxygen level drops below a certain level, and protects the farmer’s fish stocks from potential disasters.
Apollo Aquarium is another example. It uses a land-based Recirculating Aquaculture System for indoor fish farming that reduces water consumption by some 90%, and requires less manpower to maintain. In fact, such technologies make indoor high-rise fish farming possible. This can help overcome our land and sea space constraints.
I visited the TMSI last year - the Tropical Marine Science Institute of the NUS, on St John’s Island. They have quite innovative experiments on aquaculture. One of the professors showed me a youtube video of Soon Hocks in pipes. They leveraged knowledge that Soon Hocks don’t really move very much in their lifetime - they are very slow growers and the yield takes a long time to harvest. They are then able to stack Soon Hocks into “SHCs”, or Soon Hock Condominiums, and enhance the yield. This is done overseas, but certainly something that we can leverage and adapt. Understanding biological sciences, engineering and design; working together interdisciplinary to make farming, even in a dense city like ours, possible.
Attracting the younger generation
Currently, the aquaculture sector is perceived as a tough sector. It is perceived as labour-intensive and difficult in career prospects. You have to be out in the hot sun, the sea breeze and the salty air is not very good for the skin, as some people may be concerned. It is difficult to attract fresh blood into the sector.
Yet, I hear that Apollo is controlling operations in its fish farm remotely. From anywhere in the world, they can access CCTV cameras to see details, and use tablet computers to adjust temperature, oxygen and nutrient levels. Of course, people need to be there, but it shows what is possible. From this example, we can see that the sector’s current image is far from its actual potential! The adoption of technology and innovation can attract young, tech-savvy people who feel passionate about food production to join the aquaculture sector.
To prepare them for a potentially sophisticated industry, our young need to be equipped with the right skills. Temasek Polytechnic and Republic Polytechnic both offer diploma courses to train aquaculture specialists. Temasek Polytechnic’s upcoming Centre for Veterinary and Aquaculture Research and Training will also be ready, I believe, this year. With the Centre, we can look forward to more industry-oriented aquaculture research, consultancy services and training.
Conclusion
The strengthening of local agriculture, including aquaculture, is crucial to safeguarding a resilient food supply for Singaporeans. The aquaculture industry, educational and research institutions, and the Government have to work closely, hand-in-hand on farm innovation and R&D, disseminating know-how, changing mindsets, and training. Together, we can make our future more secure.
On this note, let me wish Temasek Polytechnic, and more specifically, the School of Applied Science, all the best in your R&D and training endeavours for the aquaculture industry. I wish all of you a fruitful and enriching learning experience at this conference.
Thank you.