SINGAPORE – To find a solution for the high production costs plaguing vertical farms in Singapore, a research initiative led by the National University of Singapore (NUS) is going back to the basics of plant science to create high-quality seeds.

The Seeds Innovation Hub hosted in NUS received a $22 million boost by the authorities on Nov 5 to advance crop breeding and develop superior seeds with traits such as faster growth, better taste and stronger nutritional value, specifically tailored for indoor environments.

This grant is among an over $80 million funding push in local food research that the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) announced on Nov 4 and 5 at the Singapore International Agri-Food Week (SIAW).

The other grants under the second phase of the Singapore Food Story R&D Programme are for aquaculture, alternative proteins and new ways to determine the safety of novel foods without animal testing.

The Seeds Innovation Hub started around 2022, and the $22 million injection allows it to enter the second phase of research.

“Most (farmers) have been getting seeds from the outside, and most of them are meant to be grown outside, not really indoors,” said Associate Professor Chew Fook Tim, who is from the NUS department of biological sciences and leading the project.

“One of the things we needed to do was to actually target the plant itself, the vegetable itself so that we can improve the productivity of indoor farms,” he added.

To that end, Prof Chew and his team gathered thousands of varieties of crops from across the world over the past few years and has started to closely profile each crop’s traits – down to the leaf structure and ideal shade of green.

This will be followed by mapping the DNA of each plant to identify the ideal genes. The next step would be to breed the promising varieties to produce faster-growing or more nutritious progenies. Conventionally, one breeding cycle can take a year, but Prof Chew’s team will be employing “speed breeding”.