Strengthening food security through alternative carbohydrates in the city-state of Singapore

Urban Farm DB summary

A review paper (2023) examines the challenge of strengthening food security — especially production of staple food carbohydrates — in places with limited or unavailable land and natural resources, using the city-state of Singapore as its case. Unlike some alternative foods such as cultured meat, producing carbohydrate foods through conventional agri-food approaches requires substantial natural resources unavailable in regions like Singapore, so the paper argues for developing new, sustainable methods to increase the quantity and nutritional quality of carbohydrate-rich foods. It reviews technology developments such as indoor vertical farming and urban farming used to improve crop quality and production, and recommends exploring underutilized and unconventional resilient, nutrient-dense crops, identifying hidden resources in local ecosystems such as revalorizing agri-food processing byproducts, and producing alternative carbohydrates including microbial and synthetic sources, suggesting Singapore's experience and approaches may serve as an example and inspire creativity for other regions.