Developing Sustainable Solutions for Future Food Production


By Associate Professor Sanjay Swarup

Deputy Director, NUS Environmental Research Institute
Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, NUS

Currently, Singapore imports over 90% of the food consumed in the country. However, to buffer against supply disruptions and price fluctuations, the nation has set the ambitious target of producing 30% of its local nutritional needs by 2030 (30 by 30 vision for Singapore Food Story).

To achieve this target, local food production needs a multi-fold increase which can only be achieved in a sustainable way tailored for our resource limited nation.

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Working towards these goals, NUS researchers are now adopting unique, integrated, interdisciplinary approaches together with government agencies and industry, with the aim of developing climate-resilient and resource-efficient technologies for our local urban farming systems. These technologies will ultimately help to build circularity and sustainability for our nation’s food security.

In the lab of Assoc Prof Sanjay Swarup, researchers integrate eco-friendly and cost-effective solutions specifically for value-added urban vegetable production. To do this they exploit the synergy between plant traits, their associated beneficial microbiomes and physico-chemical traits. In particular emphasis is placed on innovative agri-inputs, reducing energy and environment footprint while, increasing circularity, yields and climate resilience.

To resolve the complexities of environmental and agricultural sciences the team uses a combination of plant science, microbial ecology, analytical chemistry, statistical and data sciences and already their approach is yielding significant results.

The team has, for example, developed a systematic framework to extract knowledge from observations that generate high-density data leading to reduction of complexity. They have also developed novel experimental and test-bedding systems to validate hypotheses, thereby identifying management handles for practitioners. More specifically, the group has identified key drivers of crop yield and quality in soil-based urban farming systems which are being tested in both government and industry-managed farms.

In one study published in Scientific Data, the team highlighted how understanding microbial metagenomes associated with locally grown green leafy vegetables is the first step towards helping urban farmers achieve higher yields with less chemical fertilizers. In this study, the team collaborated and worked with a local commercial urban farm. They obtained soil samples, as well as both the seedlings and mature plants of three common Asian vegetables - choy sum, kai lan and bayam. The microbes and their genetic material in the soil and on the plants were then extracted for analysis.

Building on Assoc Prof Sanjay’s research group findings from this collaborative effort, the team is now working towards identifying suitable targets to develop microbial consortia to enhance crop production and boost crop resilience.


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Associate Professor Sanjay Swarup is Deputy Director, NUS Environmental Research Institute (NERI); Graduate Programme Director and Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, NUS. An agriculture and environmental biologist, A/Prof Swarup has authored over 90 publications  in peer-reviewed publications in journals of international repute. His work focuses on plant breeding and plant pathology combined with molecular biology.

Contact

 

E: sanjay@nus.edu.sg
P: +65 6516 7933
W: https://smbl.nus.edu.sg/

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