Speech by MOS Dr Koh Poh Koon at the Aquaculture Industry Engagement Day 2016
Sep 15, 2016
A very good morning. It is a great pleasure to be here with you, and thank you for inviting me to attend today’s Aquaculture Industry Engagement Day. This is a second edition, more or less three years since the last one. It is a good time to have another one, periodically for us to come together and review what are the changes and challenges that are facing the industry.
The aquaculture industry is a very small industry in Singapore. There are only that many fish farms in Singapore and the community is a close-knit one. This is a great time for the aquaculture family and community to come together, meet our students, exchange ideas and share knowledge.
Aquaculture is poised to play an increasing and more crucial role in Singapore’s food security and perhaps also in the global setting. For the students and industry leaders in the aquaculture industry, this is definitely good news. For one, it means you will never be out of a job! You will find your job getting more and more important as the world now struggles with sustainable food supplies. But it is important for us to understand that there are larger global trends that drive this demand. In Singapore, the increasing crucial role of aquaculture is inevitable because the world is changing in ways that will potentially threaten our food supply. I will reinforce some points Mr Seto has alluded to earlier, just to reemphasise that these changes are coming upon us and we all play a part in addressing those changes.
First, climate change and unpredictable weather patterns are expected to impact global food production. The science behind this is still rather imprecise, but generally experts all agree that there is a certain degree of negative impact on our food supply globally.
Second, and this is related to the first point, is wild fish stocks are declining all over the world, not just because of global warming and the impact of water temperature and current changes. There is also a problem of overfishing in many areas. We are likely to see wild catch continue to decline over the years.
Third, the world’s population is projected to increase from 7 billion today to 9 billion in the year 2050. That is not a long time but there will be a huge increase in number. This means that increasingly, the demand will outpace supply.
You can see that the magnitude of the problem before us is a big one. For Singapore, in which 90% of the food we consume is imported, this becomes a big problem if we do not prepare ourselves early enough.
So how do we prepare? Mr Seto had made some of these points earlier, but I think it they are worth repeating because we all need to understand what are the challenges before us.
We want to increase on one hand, local food fish production, but on the other hand, we do face constraints as a very small nation. As mentioned earlier, we face constraints of land, labour and limited sea space for us to do sea-based farming. So the question is: how can we overcome these constraints?
The answer is in the theme of today’s event – “Sustainability through Innovations”, because this is an enabler which will allow us to do more with less. We can leverage on our ideas collectively and on technology to find a good solution to this problem which confronts us all. By working together and pooling our creative ideas, we can turn our seeming vulnerability into a strength we can tap into. Allow me to suggest three ideas for all of us here to think about.
One, we need to strengthen the nexus between our institutions and our industry. This will allow us all to find solutions that will enable our fish farms to produce more fish in a sustainable way. I see that there is great complementarity in having our institutions work together with our industry. We know research institutions look for solutions in a focused and academically rigorous way – that is good. But we also have the industry which can play a strong role in helping operationalise some of these concepts, so that it is commercially viable and it actually produces real world impact.
It is when the two come together, innovative solutions can transform the industry, expand businesses, put our research institutes on the world map, because you can then prove your concepts and show that it works, and more importantly, put more fish on our dining table. This is a nexus, if it comes together, it will be good for all of us. Everyone here will benefit, whether you are a student, part of the industry, or just a consumer.
Two, we need to open our minds to technology. Many commercially viable solutions already exist today, but the question is, as an industry, are we open to adopting some of these measures and technology that are out there. I can understand that there is always a degree of concern when dealing with new technologies, because sometimes, these solutions may not always be proven. That being said, new methods and technologies can change everything, and if we don’t try, we will never ever know. But of course, we need to do so in a calibrated manner and we should not try frivolously. If we can ring-fence some of these new technologies, you can experiment with some of these and see for yourself the potential before us.
Many of our local fish farmers have already seized the moment. Some of you are here today. There are already closed containment aquaculture systems in some of our coastal fish farms, like the one that is used by Metropolitan Fishery Group. These types of systems protect against external environmental impacts. Events like plankton blooms which have happened before in our coastal waters, will pose very little threat to farms which use systems like this. In fact, the sensors in Metropolitan Fishery Group (MFG)’s fish tanks will allow them to remotely monitor the water’s status, the temperature, the PH, the salinity, the nutrients consumed, the oxygen level, so that the fish are cultured under optimal conditions. This is definitely a step up from the traditional open net cage aquaculture system.
When I visited MFG’s farm out at sea, I was impressed by the fact that the fish tanks have sensors in there. Malcolm and his partner uses an app, to be alerted of any changes in the water condition, beyond what is optimal. They are prompted to changes that need to be rectified, and that protects the stock, and their business.
Another example is the technology being used at Apollo Aquarium. Unlike coastal farms, Apollo is going one step further, by going indoors with a land-based Recirculating Aquaculture System. The system maintains water at an optimum condition that enables the company to grow more fish within the same tank, so the conditions are much more optimised, with the same water volume that was used previously. At the same time, the system reduces water consumption by over 90%, therefore reducing cost for the company and requires little manpower for maintenance. These types of technologies make indoor fish farming a very viable business process.
I visited Apollo some time ago - the control room is air-conditioned, and you watch the monitor just like an air traffic controller. You don’t have to be exposed to the elements, and you’re sitting in the comfort of an office. There are monitor screens, and you can tell from the video feed and the sensor feed what the situation in the tanks is. The tanks can be stacked up high within the building itself, so it saves space and maximises the output.
Three, we need to attract a new generation into the industry. Without younger fish farmers to take over, the industry will inevitably decline. However, to attract today’s young, we must change not just the image of the industry, but also the nature of work in the sector. With technology, fish farming will definitely become more like an industrial process, because today you can do it much more intensely, in a controlled situation, and with good science behind it. It has become not just commercialised, but more industrialised as well. In that sense, this will make the whole proposition of aquaculture more exciting for our young generation.
In fact, I think the term ‘fish farmer’ does our new generation of people engaging in aquaculture a big disservice. This is because they are no longer traditional farmers. I think we should call them ‘aquaculture specialists’, or ‘aquaculture technologists’. It will be more befitting to the fact that they are all trained in techniques and in science as well. So I hope as a community, we will drop the term ‘fish farmer’, and call the younger generation graduating from this polytechnic, ‘aquaculture technologists’, or ‘aquaculture specialists’.
Training programmes such as Republic Polytechnic’s Diploma in Marine Science & Aquaculture, will help to do all these. I understand that the Diploma’s curriculum integrates classroom discussions with experiential learning to some of these farms. The students are poised to start industrial attachments in the coming weeks, and that will allow them to be exposed to the farms, hatcheries, and research institutes like the Tropical Marine Science Institute to give them a real hands-on experience.
This sort of exposure to the aquaculture ecosystem will make the learning more relevant and “hands on”. It will also showcase how technology can actually transform and make a real difference. The application of technology and smart sensors will play to the strengths of our technology-savvy younger generation. I think there are a lot of plus points, we will play to the strengths of the younger generation to create a conducive working environment, and increased production at the same time.
I hope that students will understand that this sector will play a key role in strengthening Singapore’s food security. It is not just about you building your career, it is about you contributing to the nation as well. Eventually, some of you might even be able to export our home-grown technologies globally and fly our flag high. Taken together, I hope that this will attract more patriotic, passionate, and technology-savvy young people to join the industry.
How can we transform the entire fish farming industry? Can we level up our fish production using technology to be self-sufficient in our needs and to make ourselves more food-secure as a nation?
These are important questions that we need to ask ourselves. Through successive iterations of such events like the one today, I hope we keep that two questions at the forefront and focus on finding solutions. These are complex issues that we cannot solve right away. But events like the Aquaculture Industry Engagement Day today will start this conversation. Today, I see that Republic Polytechnic has lined up a panel of knowledgeable speakers from around the world and I’m looking forward to hearing from them. I also hope that our industry partners here, students and academics will also join in the discussion, so we can all learn from each other and co-create solutions to face the challenges but also to seek opportunities.
Let me thank Republic Polytechnic and NUS for organising today’s event and for helping to promote the local aquaculture industry. Allow me to also thank all of you for being a big part of this event, and to industry partners for making this possible.
I will leave you with this thought:
Many of us would know that Singapore had a huge problem with water sufficiency when we became independent. Through the years, we have used innovation and technology to overcome some of these challenges. Today, we are water sufficient. We did that without sacrificing more land to create more reservoirs. We creatively used the Marina Barrage as another new reservoir. But we also adopted technologies like water desalination and water recycling to meet all our nation’s needs. Can we, as an aquaculture industry, also leverage on technology? Perhaps one day, some of you here will be the flag bearers for Singapore, to show the world how we can leverage on technology to make ourselves food sufficient.
With that, I thank you.