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Singapore’s homegrown farming dream is beginning to fade Bloomberg Updated Wed, 24 July 2024 at 10:06 am SGT · 6-min read A worker walks between hydroponics growing panels at the Livfresh farm in Singapore. (Photographer: Ore Huiying/Bloomberg) By Audrey Wan and Low De Wei (Bloomberg) – By most measures, Karthik Rajan’s farm in Singapore is a success story. Run from a two-hectare plot of land in the island’s north, LivFresh has been supplying major supermarkets with spinach, lettuce and other Asian green vegetables since 2022. The firm turned profitable in March. It may still close down by the end of the year. Rajan is one of a small number of entrepreneurs attempting to farm in a country smaller than New York City. Like most of his peers, he’s facing an uncertain future as funding runs dry, with investments in homegrown agricultural startups cratering over the past few years. Since the start of 2023, at least half a dozen large farms have shut down or scaled back operations...

  Why is Singapore’s recycling rate falling? Ariel Yu The overall recycling rate in Singapore had declined over the past decade, from 62 per cent in 2013 to 52 per cent in 2023. PHOTO: ST FILE Updated Jul 22, 2024, 05:07 PM     SINGAPORE – Recyclables “spoilt” with food or liquid waste may be a common and regrettable sight at many recycling bins around Singapore, but poor recycling habits are not likely to be the main driver behind Singapore’s falling recycling rates, said an expert. Instead, syst...

  Encouraging creativity in the classroom still a challenge despite MOE push, teachers say Singapore’s 15-year-olds topped the 2022 PISA study on creative thinking, but teachers say it's not easy to encourage creativity in academic work. Secondary 2 students learning the ukulele during a music lesson at Jurong West Secondary School. (File photo: CNA/Raydza Rahman) 02 Jul 2024 06:00AM (Updated: 02 Jul 2024 10:51AM) SINGAPORE: When Singapor...

  H&M Is the First Major Fashion Chain to List Suppliers for All Garments to Combat Slavery The fashion industry is rife with slavery and labour abuses. LONDON, April 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Fashion brand H&M has become the first major retailer to list individual supplier details for each garment on its website to increase transparency in an industry with high risks of slavery and labour abuses. The Sweden-based multinational's move was hailed by workers rights groups who said it was a step forward, but added that the data may not be particularly meaningful to shoppers without additional information to put it into context. "This is innovative and good," Anna Bryher advocacy director at Britain's Labour Behind the Label, which campaigns for garment workers' rights, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "Maybe H&M need to think a bit more about how to make that information live and useful to consumers — adding information for ex...

  The Developed World Is Missing the Point About Modern Slavery Rakib works in a parts-making shop in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on June 17, 2015. Children in Bangladesh are often employed to do hard manual labor K M Asad—LightRocket/Getty Images E arlier this month, the Walk Free Foundation — an Australian NGO — released the first ever “ modern slavery index ,” which hoped to highlight the countries most affected by modern slavery, and the countries that still need to resolve the problem. The countries that scored worst are, perhaps unsurprisingly, all in the developing world: North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, India, China and Qatar. The countries that performed best were all in Europe and North America. Like many studies from Western NGOs, it would appear that Walk Free’s findings shed light on wrongs done elsewhere, but avoid looking closer to home (such as the conditions of aboriginal Australians and the labor exploitation on Australian-owned mines in Africa ). Their index...

  One in 200 people is a slave. Why? This article is more than 5 years old Slavery affects more than 40 million people worldwide – more than at any other time in history Last modified on Wed 19 Oct 2022 16.53 BST How many slaves are there today, and who are they? The word “slavery” conjures up images of shackles and transatlantic ships – depictions that seem relegated firmly to the past. But more people are enslaved today than at any other time in history. Experts have calculated that roughly 13 million people were captured and sold as slaves between the 15th and 19th centuries ; today, an estimated 40.3 million people – more than three times the figure during the transatlantic slave trade – are living in some form of modern slavery, according to the latest figures published by the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation. Women and girls comprise 71% of all modern slavery victims. Children make up 25% and account for 10 million of all the...

  Flexible work arrangement guidelines can be a chance to improve HR practices in Singapore, says expert More help will be given to firms to upgrade their human resource practices so employees can better use flexible work arrangements. File photo of office workers in Singapore's central business district. (File photo: iStock) SINGAPORE: The labour movement is urging employers to evaluate staff performance based on their output rather than the number of hours worked, so that flexible work arrangements (FWAs) can be effective. All employers must have a process in place for workers to make formal requests for flexible work arra...