Support Local - Buy locally produced vegetables & eggs

I was buying my grocery at the NTUC Fairprice when I chanced upon their marketing banner to urge the shoppers to buy locally produced vegetables. Heh the locally produced vegetables are typically priced higher than those from Malaysia or China. I recalled there was a government initiative to sustainably produce 30% of our nutritional needs by 2030, i.e. that "30 by 30" programme, see this "Our Food Future" website. So I guess there is some reminder and support by NTUC Fairprice for this government food initiative. 

Support Local Food Supply - NTUC Fairprice

I am all for supporting local initiatives! Although to be honest there were only a few boxes of locally produced vegetables at the NTUC Fairprice. There is limited variety produced given our weather and limited land supply. I saw some packs of Xiao Baicai and Caixin hua. Sometimes I wonder how our local vegetables farmers can survive given there is not enough scale for their production nor could they compete in terms of pricing against the farmers in Malaysia or China. Yes I bought a pack of the Yili vegetables. I hope there would also be some form of government support for these local farmers, e.g. for some of the government events (e.g. those involving food and such), the organisers should also source from these local farms.

Vegetables from Yili

Further down the shopping aisle I saw this other promotion. This time the promotion is about Chew's Eggs, and great it is another local producer of food! The promotion is a lot more attractive this time round - Buy 2 trays of eggs and Get 1 Free tray. Essentially this translates to about 33% discount if the shopper buys 3 trays of eggs in total. Given all the concerns about food inflation and such, naturally this deal would be attractive to shoppers.

Chew's Eggs - Buy 2 Get 1 Free

Personally I think we could do more to support local producers of food. It was quite sad to know our local farmers (and fishermen) face many challenges when we know (or should know) food supply is a very key ingredient for our national security. I believe the price of chicken hasn't dropped since supply has been restricted from our neighboring country - the few pieces of chicken on our hawker chicken rice is honestly quite pathetic.

This was especially stark during the COVID period when everyone was worried about our food supply. I remembered that shelves were empty and the many shoppers frantically just grabbed any food that they could find. Now that COVID is over, I think our planners should at least pour in more resources or help to make sure the "30 by 30" programme succeed. Hopefully local enterprises like NTUC Fairprice could also help these local farmers (say local commission?).