The first thing that passed my lips when I landed in Singapore was chicken and rice.
My friend Bryan had spent the last year convincing me that there was absolutely nothing like chicken and rice in his home country of Singapore. He was right. It was absolutely amazing! The chicken was succulent, flavorful, and plump, the rice was light and fluffy, the tangy and slightly spicy sauce, unique to each stall, brought the dish together and gave it a tantalizing zing, while the smooth, refreshing broth, served alongside the dish, cleansed your palate, readying it for the crisp snap of cucumber that signaled another incoming bite.
Throughout my three weeks in Singapore, I must have eaten chicken and rice at least ten times. Each time I went, however, I would hear people in line whispering about high prices, and early closing times. I would see prices taped over and re-drawn, menu items crossed through. Finally it became so common that I had to ask Bryan what it was all about. He looked at me and simply said, “for the first time in 60 years, there's a chicken shortage in Singapore”. I was shocked. Not because there was a chicken shortage, but because it was happening in Singapore. For me, Singapore was a symbol of wealth and power in Southeast Asia. It’s the richest country in that region, by far, but also the most land poor. I already knew that they didn’t farm on the island, and most of their food was imported, so I was very interested to see what was stopping them from importing not just any food, but the main ingredient in their de-facto national dish, chicken and rice.
When I began my research, it immediately became clear that there was, in fact, chicken in Singapore. The country imports thousands of pounds of frozen chicken from all over the world. The only reason this “chicken shortage” is happening is because there is no fresh chicken coming into Singapore to be slaughtered and prepared. So, why were chicken and rice stalls selling out and closing their doors? I had to find out for myself. When I finally made it to the front of the chicken and rice lines, I added that question to my repertoire. The answers all ended up sounding similar. “Why would I use frozen chicken? It’s not the same.” “If I switch, no customers will come.” “It won’t taste good, and I could never look myself in the mirror if I purposely served my customers an inferior product.” Every stall owner I talked to was adamant about using fresh chicken, and would rather shut their doors then change their recipe. Their commitment was inspiring to me, and spurred me to do more research into what was causing the shortage.
At the surface level, the publicized reason for the chicken shortage is that Malaysia (the country supplying one-third of all fresh chickens to Singapore) has banned export of chicken in an attempt to curb skyrocketing chicken feed and domestic chicken costs. At just a glance, this makes sense. Of course they would like to keep supply high in their home country to lower costs. Interestingly enough, even with the ban, supply in Malaysia has stayed almost the same. So, where is all the chicken going?
To find this out, I talked to one of my friends from Malaysia, who I actually met in Singapore (for confidentiality I will call them Max). While doing research with Max, and asking him what Indonesian internet thinks of all this, we came upon a surprising statistic. Around 6x more chickens are dying in production these past three years than in prior years. Partially, a new chicken gastrointestinal disease is to blame, it’s wreaking havoc on the breeding chickens in less sanitary farms, but the other culprit is the weather. Malaysia has gotten significantly hotter. Too hot for chickens to live and breed, making outdoor chickens very susceptible to dying from heatstroke. Worst of all, these farms can’t afford fans or AC, especially with the skyrocketing costs of chicken feed due to a few bad harvests (also because of the weather). If this wasn’t bad enough for the farmers, the Indonesian government decided that this would be a perfect year to institute a 25% increase in minimum wage, forcing farmers expenses up. The final nail in the Malaysian chicken-filled coffin, Covid, forces all the migrant farmers, which most farms rely almost exclusively on, to leave Malaysia until Covid lessens.
A metaphorical quadruple whammy.
Singapore is out of luck when it comes to Malaysian chicken. Not only that, other types of foods have been rising in price in Singapore, and not only due to the constant need to import all their food. Small changes stacking up, just like what happened in Malaysia, have been happening in other places as well. These are fragile systems, and when disturbed, food costs, and the costs associated with them can skyrocket. Climate change, and a recent uptick in antagonistic export laws have forced food costs up, not just in Singapore, but around the world. These new laws and difficulties related to rising temperatures have hit big producers extra hard, with Brazil and India both facing significant struggles to upkeep their output. Because of this, they have had to raise their prices, producing a snowball effect in world food costs. Food costs worldwide have risen on average by a whopping 7% since 2019 (data from 2021). That is a massively significant percentage in a very short time period. If that wasn’t enough, Covid has added another huge speed bump in the supply chain, and new aggressive tariffs (due to the war in Ukraine) have piled themselves on to the rising cost of food.
It’s an undeniable fact that food costs are rising, and that a huge amount of people, the farmers, producers, and the consumers are feeling this negative impact. Without diving headfirst into a mini-research paper, it’s hard to know that this isn't just a temporary chicken shortage in Singapore. It’s a microcosm of the cracks beginning to appear in the entirety of the food and ingredient production industry. It’s a microcosm of our actions finally having visceral consequences. While the signifier for us might be having to wait in a long line for a finite amount of chicken and rice in Singapore, for another it might be having to lay off 50 employees whose livelihoods depend on you, and close your farm, your entire family’s only income. Whatever it looks like, it’s always worth it to follow the cracks, and find the source.
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