Building Urban-Rural Alliances to Respond to Food Security Issues

"Upstream researches and novel ideas in breeding technologies using genomics should be strengthened to increase agricultural outputs in Singapore as well as in the region," says Senior Parliament Secretary Dr. Mohamad Maliki bin Osman, of the Ministry of National Development and Ministry of Defense of Singapore, in his keynote address during the opening of the International Conference on Asian Food Security 2011 being held in Singapore. Dr. Osman also said that Singapore imports almost 90% of its food, and agriculture in the country is almost non-existent. However, food imports into Singapore are sourced out from various places in order to safeguard food security and safety. Singapore should therefore take an active role in addressing these issues.

Dr. Osman called for the strengthening of Research and Development; downstream and upstream in agriculture to meet the challenges of food security in the region. He also highlighted the need to conduct novel research on urban agriculture and farming to complement national food production programs, and to continue generating innovative solutions to address food security issues, his response to the conference theme "Building Urban-Rural Alliances".

The international conference was attended by close to 300 participants from the government, academe, public and private sectors, industries, non-government organizations and the media. It is organized by the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore and the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture.

For details on the conference contact knowledge.center@isaaa.org.