The seed has been planted. Now farmers in Kranji are looking forward to reaping the rewards of an ambitious 10-year plan announced yesterday.
The aim? To help their businesses grow bigger and better.
They plan to set up a farmers’ market, improve transport links to their rural premises and have their farms audited for productivity.
The move by the Kranji Countryside Association (KCA) comes as Singapore attempts to improve its food security by increasing food production and diversifying its food sources.
To boost production, the KCA will have its farms audited by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority, which oversees them, to see how they can improve.
Over the next three years, the KCA, which represents 10 farms raising fish, animals and vegetables, also wants to set up a market selling local produce, get a public bus service started and improve cyclists’ access in the area’s narrow, winding lanes.
And over the next 10 years, it will work with agencies such as the National Environment Agency to redevelop the Lim Chu Kang jetty and employ more disadvantaged people.
Asked where the money will come from, KCA president Ivy Singh-Lim of Bollywood Veggies said they would make do with what they have: ‘Farmers like us, we’ve existed all this while without much help in terms of money.’
Yesterday, the association gave three media groups awards for their coverage of rural issues.
The Straits Times’ Ms Tan Hui Yee received one of three Kranji Awards for her series of stories on Singapore’s farm areas. Ms Tan will donate her $2,000 award to the KCA. The others went to MediaCorp’s Chinese-language Channel 8 and Chinese-language travel magazine Travellution.
