Hear from Nithiya Laila about using food as a medium to discuss the topics of heritage and culture. As a culinary anthropologist, she sees food as aspiration, identity and overcoming prejudices.

During the pandemic lockdown in 2020, some of us baked bread, other made Dalgona coffee, and Hao Pei started guerilla growing rice varieties on a terrace.

In this episode, Hao Pei reveals the origin story of 飯醉集團 Secret (Rice) Society - a guerilla rice garden to save and share native rice varieties and vernacular growing knowledge located on a rooftop in Toa Payoh. He shares about his brushes with the Town Council due to ‘unauthorised planting’, as well as the erasure of native rice varieties tracing back to the Green Revolution and surgence of GMO seeds and hybrid varieties.

Hao Pei believes that rice is more than just food to be consumed, it contains layers of knowledge. What are the stories do we tell about rice? What variety of rice do we consume in Singapore and why? Listen on and find out with us.

Resources

- Broken Rice Atlas - https://brokenriceatlas.net-

- Secret Rice Society -https://www.instagram.com/secretricesociety/

In this episode, Aditi unpacks the language that come to shape our perception of soil and shares how Living Soil Asia aims to build and renew our connection to soil through its education programmes. Likening soil to a sourdough starter, Aditi reveals how the life that exist within our soil, or soil microbiology, forms the basis of a healthy food system. Han Jing also discusses the often-overlooked aspects of soil when it comes to growing food and the need for soil regeneration in urban Singapore.

Climate change is connected to broader social determinants of health, and Aditi and Han Jing speaks to the interconnected of soil to everything around us. How does the health of our soil mirror the health of our communities? What do we lose when we lose touch with the soil, and how do we regenerate our soil in our ‘concrete jungle’? Listen on and reimagine our soil story with us.

Resources

Living Soil Asia - https://livingsoil.asia/

Project Black Gold: Community food scrap collective - https://www.projectblackgold.sg/

Foodscape Collective: Co-creating an inclusive circular food system - https://foodscapecollective.com/

Many of us are unaware that behind the old ORTO site lies Ground-Up Initiate (GUI) - a 2.6ha nature-inspired educational farm and woodworking craft arm. GUI will have to relocate by the end of 2023 as the current land is slated for new housing developments. Unlike the fate of other farms, GUI has secured a new site in the heartlands of Khatib, right behind NS HomeTeam Khatib. Bingyu and the GUI team are fundraising for the new space and getting ready for #GUIsBigMove.

The first thing GUI planted in its first plot of land in 2008 was peanuts. GUI was founded by the late Mr Tay Lai Hock to address the environmental and social concerns created by rapid urbanisation in a small corner of Lim Chu Kang, for city dwellers from all walks of life to touch the soil and heal. 14 years on, the space has grown through the power of community and allowed people to come and connect with nature, others and themselves with the aim of building a 5G society.

Bingyu shares with us the ups and downs of leading a farm in Singapore, the challenges of culture building and the impending move, and his hopes for a community-led new space. In his words, GUI is magical - go see for yourself before the move!

Resources

Ground-Up Initiative - https://www.instagram.com/groundupinitiative/

Fundraiser for #GUIsBigMove! - https://rayofhope.sg/campaign/gui/ 

#1000GUIConnections by Koo Hui Ying - https://rayofhope.sg/campaign/1000guiconnections 

In this episode, we chat with Foo Mao Sheng, an Entomologist from the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (NUS). He shares with us how he got started with eating edible insects after trying his first bamboo worm from Thailand as a protein replacement, as well as the history of entomophagy.

Join our hosts Movin and Sankar as they try silkworm pupae, grasshoppers, crickets and superworms live (don’t worry, they’re SFA-approved!). 

Resources and further reading

1. Mao Sheng on Mothership.sg 

2. Why Cockroaches Need More Love & SG's Undiscovered Insects ft. Foo Maosheng, Entomologist - Yah Lah BUT Podcast

In this episode, Rachel Wong shares her journey starting and writing about agriculture and the food system at Cong and Co. Growing up with her grandmother who cooks sparked her curiosity towards how food is prepared and the broader socio-economic forces that shape and determine the food we choose to put on our plates, as well as what is considered palatable. 

Rachel also discusses the Western-centrism of vegetarian diets and breaks down why agro-biodiversity is important to a sustainable food system. Reflecting on how high-yield crops have come to replace much of our traditional and native varieties, she reflects on how it has influenced how and what we farm, and its associations with notions of modernity and progress.

Resources and further reading

1. Cong and Co - https://congand.co/

2. LepakinSG - https://www.instagram.com/lepakinsg/

3. Pamelia Chia - https://pameliachia.com/

4. The Near-Death of the Cavendish Banana - https://time.com/5730790/banana-panama-disease/

5. Towards Singapore’s Food Future: 30 by 30 - https://www.ourfoodfuture.gov.sg/30by30/