Dr Bao Shengjie (L) and Minister of State Alvin Tan at Singrow Farm (Photo: Courtesy of Singrow)Singapore (VNA) – Singrow, a Singapore-basedagri-genomics, has developed a research project to promote strawberry varietiesgrown in tropical climate areas. The firm has also promoted franchise farmpartnerships in Malaysia and Thailand to make significant progress in itsglobal expansion plans.
The plan will allow the firm to increase strawberryproduction by at least 100 times and under the interest agreements, part of theproduction will be exclusively shipped to Singapore. This will enable thecity-state to have a year-round supply of high-quality, seasonally-specificfruit at prices comparable to those traditionally farmed around the world.
Singrow said that currently its strawberry prices,quality and sizes are comparable to those from Japan or the Republic of Korea, whichare priced between 25-50 SGD (18-36 USD) per pack of 9-12 high quality strawberries.
With the plan to replicate the farm model to othercountries, Singrow hopes to reduce the price of strawberries to about 12-15 SGDper pack. In addition, the company will be able to grow strawberrieswithout the use of pesticides and fertiliser.
CEO of Singrow Dr. Bao Shengjie expressed his beliefthat the plan will contribute to making Singapore more food self-sufficient. Heacknowledged that with only 1% of Singapore's land set aside for farming andlimited resources, the country's agriculture sector needs to look at new waysto booster food production.
Singapore's Secretary of State for Trade and IndustryAlvin Tan affirmed that the government will continue to support agri-techcompanies like Singrow in finance and business expansion. In 2021,Singapore launched the 60 million USD Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund tosupport farmers to apply technology in local food production.
The fund is managed by the Singapore Food Authority,under the Ministry of Environment and Sustainability, with the aim of helping agro-techcompanies increase productivity and production capacity in smaller farmingareas.
The Secretaryemphasised the need to develop the agri-tech industry as a key growthmotivation with government’s support./.
