Food is key to the Singaporean identity. A panel put together by Ethos Books in collaboration with SHF2021 will discuss the country’s relationship with food in the context of a global climate crisis and a nation lacking in natural resources.
Panellists will, among other things, chew on the all-important question of whether it is possible to produce food sustainably in Singapore as the push to grow local and eat local gains momentum. They will also tackle broader topics like how traditional histories have sometimes been sidelined in our food paradise and will consider how we might be able to reimagine food narratives in Singapore.
The event will be streamed live on Ethos Books' Facebook page.
About the Speakers
Christopher Leow has traversed from "farm to table". He travelled and worked as a cafe owner, ramen consultant and was a key member in setting up the urban farm at Edible Garden City. His mission is to further improve the different components of the food system. Christopher is also highly involved in the local agriculture scene. He lectures and participates in community farming projects, and among other things, leads a rooftop community garden project in Serangoon North. He is also a founding member of Bootle's Market – a grocer, farm and kitchen concept.
Firdaus Sani is a fourth-generation Orang Laut whose ancestry can be traced to the Riau Islands. His maternal grandparents used to live on Pulau Semakau before they had to leave their home for mainland Singapore in 1977. In 2020, Firdaus started Orang Laut Singapore (http://oranglaut.sg), a page dedicated to retelling the stories of Semakau through the eyes of family members before it was turned into a landfill. Firdaus also has a keen interest in conservation issues, having worked as a marketing and communications manager at a non-profit organisation in the environmental sector.
Neo Xiao Yun is a policy officer concerned with advancing constructive international relations to secure Singapore's strategic aviation interests. When she is not firing email submissions, she is wielding her chungkol at Ground-Up Initiative, a non-profit community with a mission to connect people with nature, self and others through nature-placemaking and volunteering activities. She also marries her love for education and the great outdoors as a facilitator of ecological learning journeys with The Untamed Paths. Xiao Yun graduated magna cum laude from Yale-NUS College in 2019 with a major in Environmental Studies. She authored the title essay in the anthology Eating Chilli Crab in the Anthropocene: Environmental Perspectives on Life in Singapore. In all that she does, Xiao Yun strives to be a part of purpose-driven businesses and groups that can make a lasting, positive impact on our environment and social fabric..
About the Moderator
Melissa Low is a research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Energy Studies Institute. She has participated in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties for over a decade and is an active sustainability thought leader, authoring, publishing and presenting at various forums. She is the designated contact point for NUS’ accreditation to the UNFCCC and serves on the nine-member Steering Committee of the Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organisation (RINGO) Constituency under the UNFCCC. Melissa provides policy analyses and conducts workshops for various stakeholders to improve understanding of the implications of the Paris Agreement and countries’ progress in meeting their climate pledges. Her current research focus is on transparency of climate action and reporting in Southeast Asia. Melissa holds an LLM in Climate Change Law and Policy (with distinction) from the University of Strathclyde, MSc in Environmental Management and BSocSci (Hons) in Geography from NUS. For her master’s thesis on past and contemporary proposals on equity and differentiation in shaping the 2015 climate agreement, Melissa was awarded the Shell Best Dissertation Award 2013. She is currently pursuing a PhD part-time at the NUS department of geography.
