Speech by SMS Desmond Lee at the Opening Ceremony of the Step-NUS Sunburst Environment Programme
Nov 23, 2015
Good morning!
Thank you for inviting me to speak at the opening of this year’s Sunburst Environment Programme.
I’m very happy to see so many young people from Singapore, ASEAN, as well as China, India and Japan gathered together for this programme, making friends, exchanging views, adding each other on Facebook and Instagram.
This is probably the youth equivalent of an ASEAN Plus 3 meeting!
Some of us Live to Eat. We love our food.
But all of us certainly need to Eat to Live. Because food is a basic essential.
When we have our meal each day, how many of us take the time to think about the process that got this food onto our table? What are the cost, consequences and interventions that led to the seemingly simple meal in front of you each day?
If you analyse and study it, you will find a really long, complex and interconnected food system, taking us from farm to fork. Many interventions in between.
I’m sure many of you would have read that in some parts of the world, there are food shortages or famines, and people go hungry for days on end.
While in other parts of the world, they are grappling with excess supply and wastage.
Food Security challenges
How do we ensure that we have food on our table each day, to meet our needs? Food that is safe, that is fresh, that is wholesome and that is affordable and accessible?
That is essentially the challenge of food security.
As bright young people living in this dynamic region of the world, it is good that you take an active and early interest in this issue, because during your generation it is likely that the problems and challenges of food security will become even more acute. And yet, the opportunities out there, such as in terms of technology, are limitless.
Here are some of the many reasons why:
a) Population Growth
First, population growth.
The world’s population is expected to grow by another 2 billion people from 7 billion today, to 9 billion by 2050.
Under half of that growth will come from Asia, our part of the world.
More people just mean much greater demand for food, which will put food production under strain. In fact, not just more people, but more affluence - a growing middle class – which means that there is greater demand for food, different types of food and expectations for more exotic food.
So can we grow and produce enough food in an environmental and sustainable way to feed everyone?
b) Climate Change
Second, climate change.
Higher temperatures affect what you can grow, and where you can grow them. The rate at which arable land get turned into deserts may increase.
Farmers may have to deal with new pests and diseases, when none existed in that part of the world before.
More extreme weather occurrences and more unpredictable climate can wreak havoc on farming cycles, destroy crop and wipe out livestock.
As more than 60% of the people living in our region rely on agriculture and food production for their income, climate change will pose a serious economic and social challenge to us all.
c) Disease Outbreaks
Third, disease outbreaks.
Let me illustrate with a simple example.
Early this year, poultry farmers in the US were hit when their livestock got infected by Avian Influenza (HPAI).
This seriously affected the supply of poultry no just within the US, but also globally, because the disease killed many chickens and the authorities had to cull many more to control the spread.
Singapore’s approach to Food Security
Given these challenges, let me share with you some of the measures that Singapore has taken to ensure food security.
a) Diversifying food sources
50 years ago, we had some 20,000 farms in Singapore.
But now, our farms occupy only about 1% of our total land area.
We therefore import the vast proportion of the food that we consume everyday. So the first of our strategies is a vital one: Diversify our food sources.
In short, don’t put all our eggs in one basket.
Why? Because we cannot predict when or where disease, extreme weather or conflict will hit.
So we import food from our neighbours like Malaysia and Thailand, and from further away as China, Australia, Brazil and the US and so on.
Diversifying our food sources as widely as possible helps to spread the risk and reduces the impact of any single source disruption.
Today, Singapore imports food from 160 countries around the globe.
b) Building a resilient local agricultural sector
However, to make our food supply more resilient, we encourage local farmers to produce key food items. This is our second strategy. This is to ensure we have a little bit of back-up as well.
Our local farms produce 25%of the eggs we need.
12% of leafy vegetables. 8% of the fish we eat.
This helps to provide a little bit of buffer for us if the overseas supply of any of these important items is suddenly disrupted.
With technology and with better processes, I think we can try to push these figures higher. By increasing yield, raising productivity, and by reducing agricultural losses.
c) Reducing Food Wastage
I just spoke about 2 supply side measures for food security – namely, diversifying overseas food sources, and developing a local buffer supply of key food items.
It is also important to look at demand side measures. Sometimes, it is harder to put the spotlight on ourselves.
Currently, 30% to 50% of all food produced worldwide is wasted.
In Singapore, the amount of food waste we generate has gone up 1.5 times over the last 10 years.
We can and we should aggressively pursue way to reduce this wastage.
This should be done all along the food supply chain.
For instance, we can help farmers improve the way they handle their harvests, so there’s less produce that is lost.
We can also look at food waste recycling, at the processing stage.
One example is ‘okara’, which is a kind of vegetarian ‘mock meat’ made by AVA from recycled by-products of soy milk production. So what would originally have been a by-product that is thrown away now becomes vegetarian spring rolls, okara floss and other processed food.
As ultimate consumers, all of us should also play our part.
We only need to take simple steps to make a difference.
For example, we should just buy what we need from the market or supermarket, and not too much more.
At restaurants and hawker centres, order the quantity of food that we can finish, and not excessively more.
In a recent consumer survey commissioned and published by AVA and NEA on food wastage, it is heartening to know that concern for the environment was one of the strongest motivators for Singaporeans to change their habits.
To raise awareness, NEA has also launched a campaign to reduce food wastage and work towards Singapore as a Zero Waste Nation.
Starting from today, we will see posters and educational videos on reducing food wastage.
On our Clean and Green Singapore website, we will also find an online guide that provides good tips and suggestions on meal planning, food storage, as well as recipes and ideas on how to make use of leftover food to come up with creative dishes.
d) Innovation
Innovation is an important driver in Singapore’s food security strategy.
Constantly thinking how we can apply technology and re-define processes so that we can use resources more efficiently, deal with climate change, improve food safety, diversity and quality, and so on.
I understand the organisers will be bringing all of you to Singapore’s first commercial vertical vegetable farm. The farm is an innovative response to a land-scarce Singapore, which is to grow vegetables vertically.
The vertical farm method increases agricultural productivity by 5 times, while minimising land use, lowering carbon footprint, and reducing water and energy consumption.
Understanding plant science, engineering, design – and working together in an inter-disciplinary manner –makes intensive urban farming possible even in a dense city like Singapore.
Conclusion
In this context, I urge all of you to make full use of this programme, which provides a good mix of talks by environmental and food security experts, small group discussions, as well as study visits.
Exchange information and views with each other, provoke questions about future food security scenarios, and incubate ideas that may have the potential to address food security challenges.
Solutions for problems in one field may well lie elsewhere, so we must keep an open and inquisitive mind to fully harness the benefits of an inter-disciplinary as well as multi-disciplinary approach in overcoming challenges.
With your youthful enthusiasm, creativity, talent and belief in the need for environmental sustainability, I am confident that many of you will make an impact on the world of tomorrow.
I thank the organisers for bringing this group of young people from the region together. I wish all of you a successful programme and thought provoking week ahead.