When you cannot hit the target 1/3 🙍🏻‍♀️

You shift the goal 🤷🏻‍♀️

Singapore has done well in many things¹. For example, Changi Airport² has consistently won Skytrax’s World Airport Awards for over a decade. The Henley Passport Index ranks us the most powerful passport in the world³, offering visa-free access to more than 180 countries. We made waste water drinkable!⁴ When we have a problem, we find ways to solve them.

There is, however, one thing that we have not been able to do.

We are not able to produce enough food for ourselves. Ninety percent of our food supply comes from 180 countries. Everywhere else but Singapore.

“For greater food resilience, we have set a “30 by 30” goal – to be able to produce 30 per cent of our nutritional needs by 2030,” said Sustainability and Environment Minister Grace Fu in 2022.^8,9

That plan was ditched three years later in 2025 “as rising costs and financing challenges have delayed new farm development, and the efforts to scale up the local alternative protein industry have also been held back by higher production costs and weaker-than-expected consumer acceptance.”¹⁰

The new target is now for local farms to supply 20% of fibre and 30% of protein for by 2035.

Does reducing the goals resolve the matters previously raised? Looking at what is going on around the world today, how will wars, tariffs, and control over shipping affect us? How will we feed the 6.11 million people living here? Are we waiting for the government to fix it for us? How do we as individuals and communities help ourselves? 🤔

Go Deeper

1 Why does Singapore top so many tables? (BBC, 2013)
2 Changi Airport reclaims world’s best airport title in 2025 (ST, 2025)
3 Singapore passport again ranked world’s most powerful (ST, 2026)
4 Harry Seah: Making the Unthinkable Drinkable (ABD, 2009)
5 Agriculture in Singapore (Wikipedia)
6 Singapore’s High-Tech Farming Dreams Falter as Food Security Plan Faces Setbacks (Food Chain Magazine, 2024)
7 Local production of veggies, seafood fell in 2024, but egg yields grew (ST, 2025)
8 Tech Farming Bears Fruit in Singapore (EDB, 2021)
9 A sustainable food system for Singapore and beyond (FT, 2022)
10 Singapore drops 2030 food self-sufficiency goal (Reuters, 2025)