Dr Bao Shengjie (L) and Minister of State Alvin Tan at Singrow Farm (Photo source: Courtesy of Singrow)

Singapore – Singrow, a Singapore-based agri-genomics, has developed a research project to promote strawberry varieties grown in tropical climate areas. The firm has also promoted franchise farm partnerships in Malaysia and Thailand to make significant progress in its global expansion plans.

The plan will allow the firm to increase strawberry production by at least 100 times and under the interest agreements, part of the production will be exclusively shipped to Singapore. This will enable the city-state to have a year-round supply of high-quality, seasonally-specific fruit 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, which are 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 other countries, Singrow hopes to reduce the price of strawberries to about 12-15 SGD per pack. In addition, the company will be able to grow strawberries without the use of pesticides and fertiliser.

CEO of Singrow Dr. Bao Shengjie expressed his belief that the plan will contribute to making Singapore more food self-sufficient. He acknowledged that with only 1% of Singapore's land set aside for farming and limited resources, the country's agriculture sector needs to look at new ways to booster food production.

Singapore's Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Alvin Tan affirmed that the government will continue to support agri-tech companies like Singrow in finance and business expansion. In 2021, Singapore launched the 60 million USD Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund to support 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-tech companies increase productivity and production capacity in smaller farming areas.

The Secretary emphasised the need to develop the agri-tech industry as a key growth motivation with government’s support.