Global fertiliser disruption poses food security risk, Singapore monitoring situation closely

Singapore's food supply has not yet been significantly affected by ongoing global fertiliser supply chain disruptions caused by the Middle East conflict, but the Government has cautioned that eventual disruption to both global and local supply cannot be discounted.

The assessment was provided in a written reply to a parliamentary question filed by Workers' Party MP He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC), whose oral question was not reached during question time at the Tuesday (5 May) sitting.

He Ting Ru had asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment to assess the impact of fertiliser supply chain disruptions on Singapore's food security — particularly for vulnerable households — as well as on local food production targets, and to outline what further contingency measures the Government intended to put in place to mitigate rising input costs.

In her written reply, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu Hai Yien said the disruptions had not yet had any significant impact on food supply. She nonetheless warned that sustained disruption could carry serious downstream consequences. "If the disruption continues, reduced application of fertilisers could translate to lower agricultural yield globally in future crop cycles," Grace Fu said.

Reduced agricultural yields could in turn affect animal feed production — which relies on crops such as corn and wheat — potentially causing production constraints for global animal protein supply. "We therefore cannot rule out some eventual disruption to global and local food supply," the Minister said.

Grace Fu said the Government was monitoring the situation closely and stood ready to leverage its four established food security pillars — diversification, global partnerships, local production, and stockpiling — should conditions deteriorate. Since the start of the conflict, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has taken several concrete steps to strengthen resilience on multiple fronts.

On the import side, SFA has been engaging importers and retailers to share information on possible supply risks, enabling them to ready alternative supply lines and prepare for possible disruptions. New sources of meat and meat products have been approved from Latvia, Lithuania, Greece and Peru, broadening the country's supplier base.

SFA has also been engaging local farms directly to understand the operational impact of the conflict on their production, and is exploring ways to support farms in managing rising costs. Grace Fu cited the recently announced Agri-Food Cluster Transformation Fund 2 as part of this effort. The Minister did not provide the requested detail on whether Singapore's local food production targets had been revised or were at risk of being missed in light of rising input costs — one of the specific concerns He Ting Ru had raised.

That gap is notable given the recent revision to Singapore's domestic food production framework. Under Singapore Food Story 2, announced in November 2025, the Government moved away from the original "30 by 30" goal — which had aimed to produce 30 per cent of nutritional needs locally by 2030 — adopting revised targets of 20 per cent of fibre needs and 30 per cent of protein needs by 2035. Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Zaqy Mohamad told Parliament in January 2026 that the revised targets balanced ambition with realism, reflecting both the sector's potential and its constraints.

Grace Fu's invocation of global partnerships as a food security pillar comes against a backdrop of recent bilateral activity. The Online Citizen previously reported that Singapore signed a memorandum of cooperation on food security with Cambodia on 10 April, the third such rice safeguard arrangement after similar agreements with Vietnam and Thailand in 2025.

The day before Tuesday's sitting, Singapore and New Zealand signed what has been described as the world's first legally binding bilateral agreement to keep essential supplies — including food — flowing between the two countries during periods of crisis.

Despite the measures being put in place, Grace Fu cautioned that Singapore's supply resilience strategies "cannot fully insulate us from food inflation caused by structural global factors." Increases in energy, shipping and fertiliser costs stemming from the Middle East conflict were expected to translate into higher global commodity prices, including food.

The Minister noted that the Government had announced broad-based support measures for households and businesses last month, which she said would "help to cushion some of these cost pressures." She added that the Government would continue to monitor developments and "stand ready to do more if the situation worsens."

He Ting Ru had specifically flagged the concern of vulnerable households bearing the brunt of rising food prices — a dimension that the Minister addressed only in the context of the broader support package, without detailing how those measures would be calibrated to protect lower-income groups in particular.