Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land.
The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
Wei is confident of securing farmers for the 81-hectare site, promising they can “reduce their cost of setup and operations” there. Representing a joint venture between his agri-tech firm Archisen Pte Ltd and Southern Catalyst, backed by the Malaysian Ministry of Finance, he aims to get them going by the third quarter, offering 25-year land leases bundled with infrastructure and electricity.
Photo: AFP
“It’s an aggressive timeline,” Wei said as earth diggers roamed the plot clearing it of palm trees.
However, wait any longer, and some of those ventures might already be out of business, he added.
Singapore, a country smaller than New York City, has tried in the past few years to reinvigorate its farming industry, which over decades has been crowded out by skyscrapers and housing blocks. Just this month, it opened the world’s tallest vertical farm valued at S$80 million (US$62.1 million) and set to produce up to 2,000 tonnes of vegetables such as lettuce and spinach a year.
However, a string of farm and start-up closures has underlined how high-tech agriculture is far from being a definitive solution for the island-state’s food security.
The fledgling sector has been buffeted by “headwinds — supply chain disruptions, inflationary pressures on energy and manpower costs, and a tougher financing environment,” Singaporean Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu (傅海燕) said in November last year.
That has forced the Singaporean government to scale back an ambitious plan to meet one-third of its population’s nutritional needs through local production by the end of this decade. Still keen to protect against disruptions such as those seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war, the country’s new target is to meet 20 percent of fiber and 30 percent of protein needs locally by 2035.
While Singapore has poured more than S$300 million into agri-tech research and development, some farmers complain that does little to ease the cost pressures of actually running a farm.
Grace Lim, co-founder of vertical farm GroGrace, has been losing about S$25,000 a month since her electricity bill doubled from 2019 to last year. She called for the Singaporean government to subsidize the sector, like in the EU, which is expanding payments and simplifying financing for farmers.
“Why are they letting perfectly working commercial farms die, while they continue to pour money into research that doesn’t actually grow your real food?” she asked.
The mounting losses have also frightened off investors. Private funding for agriculture ventures in Singapore peaked at US$1.1 billion in 2021, but had dwindled to just one-tenth of that by last year, venture capital firm AgFunder said.
Wei said he believes the industry is in a “fundraising winter,” where start-ups are hard-pressed to find investors, because they are unable to turn a profit.
Wei, his clients, and other firms are starting to shift or expand their operations in the Johor-Singapore special economic zone (SEZ).
Singapore-based Vegeponics is expanding its container and vertical farms to the SEZ. By having facilities in both countries, the vegetable grower expects to cut operational costs — which can reach S$70,000 a month — by about one-third, Vegeponics marketing manager Jesper Fan said.
The move would also be welcome for retailers and customers seeking price and supply stability. Singapore is one of the world’s most expensive countries where essentials such as milk and eggs are flown in from as far away as Australia and Poland, resulting in eye-watering grocery bills.
However, what would be a boost to farmers’ bottom lines might end up deepening the island-nation’s dependence on food imports. Singaporean growers who dream of building out their local industry to bolster the country’s food security would have to get used to growing their produce on foreign soil.
Wei said the agriculture hub in the SEZ could nonetheless support closer cross-border cooperation and strengthen regional food resilience in Southeast Asia and further afield as Japanese, South Korean and Chinese farmers also show interest.
For Wei, what began as investor pitches and site walks around overgrown fields is gradually giving way to discussions on farm layouts and investment timelines.
“I think it is high time something like this is done,” he said. “If you don’t work with your neighbor, who do you work with?”
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