SINGAPORE: When one thinks about rice production, one normally thinks of enormous flooded paddy fields — but what about cultivating it in an urban context, such as your own neighborhood?

        Researchers at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) were able to do this as part of a Temasek Foundation-funded pilot project that ended in February. The rice was transported and transplanted in a six-story high-tech vertical farm built against the wall of a Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat in Tampines after germinating in TLL's greenhouse.

        Water and nutrients were provided in appropriate proportions to the rice roots using a precision drip irrigation system, ensuring that each stalk grew properly. According to Netatech, a sustainable technology corporation that operates the farm, this also helped to cut the amount of water required to cultivate 1kg of rice from over 3,000 litres to just 750 litres.

        However, it is not simply the setup that is assisting in making rice production more sustainable and climate change adaptable. TLL produced Temasek Rice, which was carefully designed to survive harsh weather conditions such as heat, drought, and floods.

        TLL's CEO Peter Chia explained, "What we did was essentially go into the full library of variation in rice and select up qualities that were lost when humans attempted to produce better yields." They chose rice with a shorter height, greater submergence tolerance, and fungal resistance. "Then we backcrossed those traits into those high-quality rice and transferred the so-called trait into the rice we have now, which is known as Temasek Rice," says the researcher.

        TLL is exploring ways to cultivate rice more sustainably and generate more nutritious harvests, and the first batch of the hardy and climate-resilient grain type was harvested in February and is being utilized for research and development. It's part of a growing corpus of work on climate-resilient crops and sustainable agricultural practices as Singapore cranks up its efforts to guarantee its food supply.

        Rising global temperatures, according to a report released in February by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), would increase the possibility of heatwaves and floods in Asia, putting the area at danger of food scarcity and health problems. Singapore, which imports more than 90% of its food, faces significant difficulties as a result of these circumstances. By 2030, the government wants to produce 30% of its nutritional requirements.

        Climate change, according to research, might cause significant changes in land and water resources for rice production, as well as the yield of rice crops farmed in different regions of the world. Rice yields might plummet by 40% by 2100 under projected climatic circumstances, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications by Stanford University researchers.

        With more than half of the world's 7 billion people relying on rice as their main source of nutrition, the drop may be disastrous. Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predicts that worldwide rice consumption is growing by roughly 5 million tonnes each year.

        Farmers, engineers, and researchers have turned to water-saving irrigation routines and rice gene banks, which hold hundreds of thousands of variations ready to be dispersed or bred into new, climate-resilient forms, to preserve and even improve productivity. Temasek Rice seedlings were placed at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the world's biggest secure seed storage facility, in 2016.

        The "doomsday vault" stores seeds from over 4,000 plant species, including crops like beans, wheat, and rice, in order to replenish food supply in the case of natural calamities and as a backup for other seed banks.

THE HUNT FOR ALTERNATIVES

        Singapore currently has the most technologically sophisticated network for plant-based protein production in Southeast Asia, according to an independent review by alternative protein think tank The Good Food Institute. The government has set aside up to S$144 million for research and development in areas such as sustainable urban food production, future foods such as advanced biotech-based protein synthesis, and food safety science and innovation.

        Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Desmond Tan said last month that more than half of the money – roughly $75 million – had already been allocated to more than 30 projects. Global companies such as Swedish plant-based milk manufacturer Oatly and California-based fermentation company Perfect Day have scaled up operations in the country as a result of the government's forward-thinking actions on alternative protein.

        Under the brand name WhatIF Foods, local food tech startup NamZ released a line of climate-resilient goods in 2020, including instant noodles and milk. They are manufactured from Bambara groundnuts and moringa, which are high in nutrients and can withstand drought and poor soil conditions with low water and fertilizer inputs.

        Professor William Chen, the head of Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) Food Science and Technology Programme, believes that finding and developing alternate sources of protein, such as mushrooms and insects, would be critical in addressing the coming food crisis. His research team is currently collaborating with industry companies to develop alternative meals based on mushrooms, which are high in protein and minerals, according to him.

        "We should not wait until there is a food crisis before we start hunting for food; it would be too late," said Prof Chen, who is also a food security adviser for the Asian Development Bank. He used the example of the potato, which was first viewed with distrust in Europe when it was imported from the Americas in the 1500s and 1600s, and only began to change perceptions during the 1700s as a result of war and starvation, he said.

        Due to food shortages, some individuals had little choice but to eat potatoes, and they quickly realized that their worries were unwarranted. "It's an example of how we should be proactive rather than reactive in our search for alternatives because we should be prepared for a potential food crisis," Prof Chen added. "The shock of the food crisis will be avoided." Nobody promises it will happen tomorrow, but with all the stress in the globe and the rising need for food, we need additional alternatives."