The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is establishing an SGD 60 million (USD 44.7 million) Agri-Food Cluster Transformation (ACT) Fund to support the transformation of the agri-food sector into one that is highly productive, climate-resilient and resource-efficient.
The ACT Fund replaces the Agriculture Productivity Fund (APF) and will be available for the next five years. The new fund comprises three co-funding components for local food-producing companies to build and expand their production capacities and capabilities: a) Technology Upscaling; b) Innovation and Testbedding; and c) Capability Upgrading.
The ACT Fund was designed following a holistic review of the needs of the agri-food sector, and builds on the design of the APF with the following improvements to better support local food-producing farms to achieve Singapore’s ‘30 by 30’ goal (which aims to produce 30% of the country’s nutritional needs locally by 2030):
- Higher co-funding quantum for the adoption of technology and advanced farming systems along the farm to fork value chain (e.g. from production to post-harvest). For example, the co-funding cap will be raised to SGD 4.5 million (USD 3.35 million) to attract and cater to larger commercial-scale, automated and advanced farming technology solutions. This will cover a higher percentage of the farm’s upfront investment cost and lower the potential financial risks that farms have to undertake.
- Expanded co-funding scope to raise farms’ environmental sustainability in farming methods and practices, and better cater to the needs of local food-producing farms at their different development and growth stages. For example, farms can receive co-funding support to implement technology to make efficient use of resources such as water and energy, and reduce pollution and waste.
- Farms can also tap on the fund’s ‘Innovation and Test-bedding’ component to trial a small-scale pilot farm in its start-up phase, and tap on the ‘Technology Upscaling’ to construct a larger commercial-scale farm in its growth phase.
- Farms that are setting up new farm sites or retrofitting indoor spaces within ready industrial spaces can also tap on the ACT Fund to defray their initial building, construction and retrofitting costs.
(Source: Singapore Food Agency)
