Opening Remarks At Phase 3 Session 1 of Lim Chu Kang Master Plan Stakeholder Engagement

Opening Remarks by Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, at the Lim Chu Kang Master Plan Stakeholder Engagement on 7 Sep 2021

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and a warm welcome. Thank you for taking time to join us for this third phase of stakeholder engagements on the Lim Chu Kang master plan.

This is the first of four sessions that will be held over the next two months, with participants from the agri-food ecosystem, resource solution providers, Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), nature groups, master planners, youth, general public, and community leaders in the area. Your presence here is very important, because you are not just representing yourself individually — you are also representing our stakeholders. We hope that you can work with us collectively to shape Lim Chu Kang.

The Lim Chu Kang Master Plan – a key piece for sustainable food security

The Lim Chu Kang master plan is a key milestone in our Singapore Food Story. We started thinking about this before COVID-19, when we were looking at it from a food security point of view, as well as climate adaptation. Our “30 by 30” vision is not just a nice slogan. We aim to grow local capacity and capability to produce food, so that one day, if we have food shortage worldwide, we are prepared and able to step up our food production capability.

We started this process of engagement in May. Phase One was about getting as wide a range of views as possible. We heard many views on what people would like to see in Lim Chu Kang, their hopes, the opportunities, as well as challenges and priorities for Lim Chu Kang. In Phase Two, we delved deeper into key themes, such as climate resilience, sustainability, R&D, education, training, and also transforming Lim Chu Kang into an urban agri-food production hub — one that is vibrant, innovative, sustainable, and accessible to all.

We have heard from you what success would look like, what we need to do, and the trade-offs required so that we can realise our vision of Lim Chu Kang. Most of you have participated in more than one session with us, and many of you have been with us since the start. I hope that you will continue to carry the views and perspectives of the participants from the earlier sessions and that you will also bring these values and perspectives into the discussion. The various stages really is a way to try to get us thinking a bit deeper, develop a shared understanding among all our participants of the issues, challenges and factors that we need to consider, and what we want to create.

So from our previous sessions, what we want to see is a Lim Chu Kang that is an attractive place for all and, most importantly, we want it to become Singapore’s flagship agri-food production hub, which will strengthen our food security. This will set us off on a different trajectory for food production capability, and it will be an important contributor to our “30 by 30” target.

Our goal for Phase 3

For this phase, we have four themes, which we call the 4 ‘E’s — Environment, Experience, Engagement and Economics. Collectively, these elements make a fifth ‘E’, which is the Lim Chu Kang Ecosystem — how we want the different components to come together so that they are synergised and optimised.

In line with the Singapore Together approach, we are here today to co-create a very important part of our infrastructure with the public, private and people sectors. We will work with our fellow participants to develop and prototype ideas, and pitch proposals. At the end of the session, feasible ideas will be incorporated into the master planning consultancy study that will be launched later this year. It is important that this is not just a feedback session but a working session, where we develop ideas further and bring in trade-offs and different perspectives, so that there are concrete ideas that we can bring to the next stage of this master planning process.

We hope that you will put your fingerprints on the elements, and that in the future, when you go to Lim Chu Kang, you will see that this is what you have given us. This will be your vision come to life.

Final thoughts

Before we get started, I would like to start you off with two more E’s — Essential and Energise.

First, think about what is essential to this project, to master plan and redevelop Lim Chu Kang. It is very important for us to get this right. What is required for such a long-term project in order for us to succeed in our “30 by 30” vision? Lim Chu Kang is not just for us, it is also for the future. How do we build up food security? How do we ensure that we have enough capability built up in this area? Also, how can we build an agri-food sector that is clean and green, carbon efficient, minimises waste, and optimises resources as much as possible. In this process, we also need to think about trade-offs. Because this is a serious discussion. This is no longer just idea generation. This is about creating concrete, workable feasible ideas now. We need to internalise some of the trade-offs in this space.

The second ‘E’ is really Energy, or to Energise. We really hope that you will give this process the energy it deserves, because this process itself is as important as the outcome. As I mentioned earlier, it is about us representing different stakeholders, coming together and internalising the trade-offs, and making a conscious decision about the future of our agri-food industry. We have brought together a very wide variety of stakeholders for this purpose. We hope that you have an endless, renewable energy in you that will spark off this spirit of innovation and create fresh ideas for this project. Be prepared to speak and be prepared to listen with open minds. We hope that tonight, we will be able to energise the spirit of co-creation as we realise Lim Chu Kang together.

Conclusion

With this, I wish you all a very enriching discussion ahead, and I look forward to hearing your proposals. I am sure you will enjoy this process of constructive discussion with your peers, as we all have a common passion, a common vision for Lim Chu Kang.

Thank you very much.