AGRI-FOOD AND VETERINARY AUTHORITY BILL

Order for Second Reading read. 3.44 pm

The Minister for National Development (Mr Mah Bow Tan): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir, the Government intends to restructure the Primary Production Department (PPD) into a statutory board, called the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), on 1st April 2000. The proposed Agri-food and Veterinary Authority Bill 2000 is to provide the legislative framework for the formation of the new statutory board.

Sir, let me now explain the rationale for the new statutory board. The PPD was formed in 1959 to develop and regulate the local farming industry. Through its agricultural development and health programmes, PPD ensured that local farms produced safe and quality food for consumption.

With the gradual shrinking of the agricultural sector over the years, PPD's role and focus also shifted. Currently, PPD ensures the safety of primary food imports, which include meat, fish, eggs, fruits and vegetables. It also prevents and controls animal, bird, fish and plant diseases, promotes animal welfare, as well as develops the agricultural industry and facilitates trade in agriculture produce.

Sir, in October last year, in my Addendum to the President's Address, I informed this House that we will diversify our sources for the supply of safe foods to meet the needs of our growing population. We will also upgrade our food inspection and surveillance systems and laboratory services to further improve on food safety.

Today, local farm production supplies only 1.5% of the poultry, 10% of the fish, 30% of the eggs and 6% of the vegetables consumed in Singapore. The bulk of our primary food requirements comes from overseas sources. This heavy dependence on primary food imports has made Singapore vulnerable to disruptions in primary food supplies due to unforeseen circumstances at the sources of supply. We therefore need to continually identify new sources of supply so that we can maximise food security.

Our heavy reliance on food imports also makes us vulnerable to outbreaks of food-poisoning and zoonotic diseases, in other words, where animal diseases are transmitted to humans. In recent years, there have been disease outbreaks, such as the Mad Cow Disease, Avian Flu and the Nipah virus. It is vital for us to maintain a high level of integrity in our food safety system to detect, prevent and control emerging diseases and food hazards.

Sir, it is now timely to restructure PPD into a statutory board. The board will have a mandate to ensure the safety of Singapore's primary food needs. It will also be responsible for animal and plant health, animal welfare and the agricultural industry, all of which are integral components of a food safety system.

As a statutory board, AVA can leverage on its expertise in agriculture and veterinary science to offer consultancy services to the food and agriculture industries in Singapore and the region. This may enable more overseas farms to meet our food safety requirements and enable them to export their food to Singapore. AVA can also provide consultancy services to assist our local farmers to set up farms, as well as facilitate the setting up of overseas food producing projects for supply to Singapore.

AVA finally can look into making Singapore an agricultural hub and distribution centre in the region. This will increase the trading of agricultural and food products through Singapore, and enable us to have access to more varieties of food.

AVA will plug into the relevant international networks to monitor closely the global spread and incidences of potentially dangerous diseases. It will also maintain world class diagnostic and testing laboratories. Resources are now being put in place. Two new laboratories are being set up and these will be ready by 2002. They will have the latest equipment and instrumentation for the detection of disease agents and harmful food contaminants as well as genetically modified foods.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I will now touch on the main features of the Bill.

Part I of the Bill gives the short title and interpretation of the Bill. Part II provides for the establishment, incorporation and constitution of the Authority.

Part III spells out the functions and powers of the Authority. These are essentially the same as those already vested in PPD, either administratively, or through the various existing Acts administered by PPD. It will also be able to form companies, joint ventures or partnerships.

Parts IV and V of the Bill relate to staff and financial matters. In particular, clause 16 includes provisions to protect the Authority from liability in respect of products or processes which have been deemed to have conformed to the Authority's requirements. This is required as the AVA will be involved in formulating standards and issuing certificates, brands or other marks related to the agri-food and veterinary sectors.

Part VI comprises the transitional provisions relating to the transfer of property, assets and liabilities of the PPD to the AVA. Under clause 31, all persons employed by PPD shall be transferred to AVA. The terms will be no less favourable than those enjoyed by the officers immediately prior to their transfer. The pension rights of Government employees would also be preserved under clause 32 of the Bill.

Part VII of the Bill covers the miscellaneous provisions such as the Authority's symbol, powers of enforcement and power to make regulations under the Bill. These provisions will help the Authority to carry out its functions. This Part also includes the list of consequential amendments to be made to other legislation which are currently administered by the PPD and to any other legislation referring to PPD or the Director of Primary Production.

Sir, in conclusion, let me say that we are now facing new challenges in ensuring the safety of our primary food needs and in dealing with threats from emerging diseases and harmful food contaminants. The restructuring of PPD into AVA will allow us to have a statutory board to work towards managing these challenges.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Lew Syn Pau (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): Sir, I support the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority Bill which basically establishes a statutory board for the current Primary Production Department. As we all know, a statutory board gives greater autonomy to the Authority, both in the employment and deployment of staff and greater speed and effectiveness in carrying out its functions. Even as a department today of the MND, it is already doing a good job, as can be seen in the way it has dealt with several crises recently, for example, in the Mad Cow Disease, the chicken flu and the pig diseases of Malaysia. If anything, I think the PPD has always been very fast and too conservative in the way they have dealt with food crisis. In this case, I am not complaining and I think we should continue to remain conservative whether the PPD remains a Government department or statutory board. The PPD has always been seen more as a regulator than as a promoter of domestic food production. Given our limited land resources, it is understandable that most of our food products would be imported. However, with new technology, new food production may take up a lot less space or land. With the PPD becoming a statutory board, I would like to urge the new Authority to be more proactive and take more initiatives to make Singapore more self-sufficient in our food supplies, in addition to its role as a regulator.

I would like to touch on a few specifics of the Bill. In clause 31 regarding the transfer of employees, it states here that "all persons employed immediately before that day . shall be transferred to the service of the Authority on terms no less favourable than those enjoyed by them immediately prior to their transfer." The Bill does not seem to address any of its structuring, rationalisation and possible redundancies that may occur in the process. I would like to ask the Minister whether there will be such redundancies and, if so, how will these be addressed by the Authority.

Clause 39 regarding powers of enforcement states that any person found guilty of an offence shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both. My question to the Minister is: have these powers of enforcement been increased as a result of the establishment of the Authority or have they remained the same?

In clause 46 there is a reference made to the Director of Primary Production Department and it says that it should be read as Director-General of Agri-food and Veterinary Services. Actually, I am a bit confused whether this job is the same job as the Chief Executive of the Authority or will this be a different person. I am not very clear about this. This is not stated very clearly in the Bill.

Mr Seng Han Thong (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, the Primary Production Department (PPD) will be converted into a statutory board on 1st April 2000. The main concern of the affected officers is the terms of transfer of employment. As many as 333 non-pensionable officers crossing over to the statutory board will lose their option to convert back to pension upon retirement under section 6(d) of the Pensions Act. They are mainly worried about their post retirement medical benefits.

In the past few months, the Amalgamated Union of Public Employees (AUPE) had several discussions with officials from the Ministry of National Development and PPD over the details of the conversion exercise and hoped to resolve this issue of perceived inequity.

Section 6(d) of the Pensions Act allows any non-pensionable officer in service before 7th December 1984 to return his excess CPF contributions at the point of his retirement from the civil service and claim pension benefits from the Government. However, in December 1984, the Government acted to contain its liabilities by restricting it to serving officers only. Thus, officers affected in this exercise have no choice but to cross over and, in so doing, lose the option. The option has become more attractive with the rising medical costs. Pensionable officers crossing over to a statutory board get to retain their pension benefits in full. This is the perceived inequity.

We are glad that the new statutory board intends to make it attractive to the employees concerned to join the board. We welcome PPD's initiative to offer an attractive package to solve this problem for those who convert. I understand that this offer is now pending approval from PSD or MOF, and I urge the two departments to be supportive as it will be a win-win solution for all. With this offer, the affected employees can decide what they want to do with the money. One way is for them to buy medical insurance to cover for their old age.

As the Government is likely to conduct more such conversion exercises in future, each conversion exercise will affect an increasing number of older workers who, in turn, would feel a greater need for medical benefits. And each time a conversion exercise takes place, unhappiness associated with the loss of option would arise. This has been so for the exercises involving TAS, NParks, Singapore Power, SBA and LTA.

The gesture on the part of the PPD to offer an attractive package is appreciated. It can serve as a good reference for future conversion exercises. It also shows that the Ministry concerned needs to be careful to ensure equitable treatment between different groups covered by the same exercise. In this case, it is a comparison between pensionable and non-pensionable officers.

As the profile of our workforce is changing, aging, in particular, will increase the desire for medical benefits over time. Hence, rules that impinge on such privileges will increasingly become a cause for anxiety among the workers.

Thus, I would like to urge the Public Service Department to be more pragmatic and creative in interpreting rules and regulations with its sophisticated software, expensive hardware and the much needed "heartware" under the Singapore 21 vision. Policies and rules cannot always be mechanically applied, following precedent.

Mr Simon S C Tay (Nominated Member): I would like to support the Bill. In doing so, I acknowledge the importance of the work performed by the PPD in its past incarnation, and look forward to this new statutory body. The supply and safety of food in Singapore is, of course, very important. If Singaporeans enjoy their food, as we all know they do, the fact that they can enjoy with safety and health is a testimony to the PPD's hard work. This is particularly because of the surrounding circumstances. When we take food from other places, whether it is the Nipah virus or whether it is the Mad Cow diseases, there are increasing strains on the global system of supplying safe and healthy food.

The new agency, therefore, is very welcomed in being able to be more autonomous and, hopefully, more efficient and effective in its functions. However, when I look through the functions in clause 11 and the powers of the Authority in clause 12 of the Bill, my first thought is that we should take this occasion to make this new agency no longer under the MND but, with due respect, under his colleague, the Minister for the Environment. Because when I look at this Bill, I understand that the powers of the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority will increasingly be about public health and safety. This ties in very much with the Ministry of the Environment's own concern of hawkers and other suppliers of food to the consumer. The present arrangement of having it under MND has been, according to my research, more a historical accident of where the Ministers were in the former Cabinet than a matter of administrative logic. I think that the public health expertise and focus of the Ministry of the Environment will actually make a better context for this new entity. I also believe the Ministry of the Environment will be better plugged into the international community and steps in the direction of international standards of environment and health.

This brings me to my next point. And this is that the international community is moving quite rapidly in certain areas. One of them is the question of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or GM foods. This has been brought up several times in the debate in the Committee of Supply, and I would not actually repeat the arguments already made. A number of PAP Backbenchers have called for labelling. I think the Government's response can be summed up as being, "we should not panic the public and we will however follow international standards." And I applaud this approach. Certainly, Singapore, as a country that does not produce our own food, should not create a stampede mentality that suspects that perhaps everything is tainted. That is not our intention. And certainly, it is good to reassure ourselves that we will follow, as we have before, the highest possible international standards.

There is uncertainty at present, and therefore there is no need to actually move. And there is also the possibility of protectionism. Countries that develop GMOs, like the USA, have tended to be quite reluctant to see labelling or other measures. Countries that do not produce these GMOs take reverse position. The dispute between the US and the European Union over the Bee-hormone case is typical of this; that your science follows your political and economic interests.

Nevertheless, I think Singapore must note that there are emerging international standards that we can follow. The Biosafety Protocol of the Convention of Biological Diversity has been passed in Cartagena after various discussions in Montreal and elsewhere. And this sets up an international framework with very important principles for us. One of the principles was of advance informed agreement. That is to say, not that you ban the import but simply that you are told what it is that you may be importing. The second principle is something called the precautionary principle. I do not want to go into all the details of this concept after so many days of debate in this House, but basically this puts the onus on safety. It asks us to act prudently rather than to wait for the last bit of scientific evidence to be in place. This is important because, as I have said, it would be in the interest of certain countries to pooh-pooh questions of safety and security. It is a bit like, again, the mad cow disease. In that case, the British scientists were the last to see any problem. Similarly, in the Nipah virus, the problem was probably detected for some time or observable for some time before authorities in that country finally acted.

So it is important to note that international standards are coming to place which suggest a certain level of prudence. This, I should tell the Minister, is congruent with our existing trade rules. We want to observe international trade regime. It is therefore important to note that the WTO agreement on sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards does allow a country to take provisional measures, if there are possible dangers to public health. So I respect the Government's position that we should wait for scientists to set heart on this point, but I would urge prudence, as has befitted the PPD's past, and I hope the AVA's future. Due precaution and prudence in importing and exporting food is really primary to Singapore's health and safety record, and the fact that other parts of our industries are developing life sciences should not obscure this first and primary concern.

The second point I wish to make is that I have noticed in the press and from the statement of Mr Lew Syn Pau, Member of Parliament for Tanglin-Kreta Ayer, before this, that PPD might be taking initiatives to increase agro-technology. This is with the aim of intensifying farming. This may possibly involve the high level use of chemicals. The aim is to supply them to our own local market. If we want to compete in this local market, I would imagine that this would be at fairly low prices, that is, Singapore would try to use technology rather than land space, but to enable it to sell fairly low price goods that would compete with others in the region. So we can produce some of its own products.

I think it is right to secure our food sources. But I am not sure it is right to take this approach of high technology and, possibly, high chemicals. After all, we are a very small and densely populated country. Our water sources are very important. For this reason, we should always be very careful in protecting our environment. We should also try, on the other hand, to produce higher value-added goods, rather than to try and match Indonesia, Malaysia or Thailand for low price market value.

Accordingly, my suggestion is that the AVA should consider encouraging and promoting organic food production rather than agro-technology. Organic food production involves no chemicals and therefore no danger to the environment. It is also, by and large, higher value-added. Organic vegetables fetch relatively high prices. I think, in this sense, it fits more into our strategy of protecting the environment while seeking economic gain. Reliable certification is also very hard to ensure, and here Singapore's reputation of being a hard-task master of certificates you can rely on, will come into play. This would allow a balance against this promotion of GM foods. When there is uncertainty, as it is now, the urge should be to diversify our approaches. It is observable that America while it is, on the one hand, promoting genetically modified food, it is also setting standards for organic food certification.

The third suggestion I have to make is that in deciding what to do with some agricultural land, we should revisit the idea of encouraging some level of citizen farming. Systems of allotment in other cities and countries are quite common. And I think it may be important to help city dwellers relax and connect to the land, and this has a value, in addition to dollars for Singapore.

My last point, Sir, is on animal control and welfare, which is part of the PPD's mission. It is often said that a mark of a civilised life is not only how we treat our fellow citizens but how we treat our pets. There have been recent reports of animal abandonment and abuse in Singapore. This has been brought to court and cases have led to a very strong signal that animal abuse in Singapore would not be tolerated.

Control of stray population of animals is, of course, an important goal that PPD has been pursuing. However, the question is how we try to achieve that goal and how we balance this with allowing ownership and responsibility. In this regard, I understand that the PPD's existing policies are quite unfavourable to household cats. For example, compared to dogs, cats cannot be licensed. And if cats are tagged with proper information about who they belong to, who to contact, they can still be rounded up and taken off and eventually gassed, without reference back to the owner who is the person identified on the tag. I think that this might show a little too much efficiency in trying to keep the streets free of stray animals. While I agree with the goal, our efforts should be conducted quite humanely. There should be reference back to the owners when cats are taken off the street. After all, while animals and pets may seem a small thing to us, for many people they are a source of very domestic pleasure of having these animals in their households. This particularly, Sir, is when the cats have been sterilised and tagged and I think they pose very little risk of creating a large and disproportionate stray population.

When we make a Government department to a statutory body, we often wish to give it more greater flexibility. In many cases, profit making or cost recovery is also emphasised, with the promotion of commercial aspects. There is nothing wrong with this. But in the case of the AVA, they will have to deal with safety and public health, what we eat, how we connect to the land, and how we relate to animals and pets. These are aspects of humanity that I hope would be observed and strengthened in the new entity.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to, first of all, thank all the Members who have spoken. They have all supported the Bill. They have also raised several questions which I would like to take this opportunity to answer.

First of all, Mr Lew asked about the transferred employees, whether there will be any restructuring or redundancies. The idea is for us to transfer all the employees to the new statutory board because all of the officers involved are needed to allow the new statutory board to exercise its functions and responsibilities. So there is no plan to do any restructuring or have any redundancies at this point in time, because, as I said, all the officers are needed.

However, I think it is correct for me to say that as the statutory board evolves, looks at its various functions and responsibilities, vis-a-vis other Government departments, I think there will be opportunities for the various Government departments to come together and to see how they can actually improve their coordination and their workflow. So if that opportunity does arise in the future, the new statutory board should take advantage of that and improve its organisational structure in order to provide a better level of service to the public.

At this point in time, I would also like to address Mr Simon Tay's point about where the new statutory board should reside, whether it should be in the National Development Ministry or whether it should be under the Environment Ministry. I think my colleague here has just given me a signal that he does not think that it is a good idea. The fact of the matter really is that food safety and control of public safety are inter-related issues. I do not think any one agency can do justice to the very broad range of issues that need to be looked at and resolved. So, for example, when you are talking about food safety, we have the PPD which is involved in the control of safety of foods and assurance of safety of primary foods. We have the Ministry of the Environment which looks at the safety of food at the retail end. We also have Ministry of Health which also looks at the food safety and communicable diseases and so on.

All these agencies have their own areas of expertise and responsibility and together, whenever there is any danger, whenever there is any sign that we are going to be affected by some major outbreak of disease, as what happened last year when the Nipah virus outbreak took place, then all these agencies come together. We form an Inter-Ministry Task Force and we fight the problem together. I think this has worked well in the past. I do not see why it would not work in the future with the AVA. And I would suggest that we look at this particular modus operandi and improve upon it, rather than to try and establish a neat solution whereby everything comes together under one agency, and then we try and decide where to put that agency.

At this particular point in time, we would not make any changes to the different responsibilities of the various agencies involved. But down the road, I think it is proper for us, as we work together, to decide how we can either apportion or re-apportion responsibilities or indeed even amalgamate some of them. But I do not see the time where all these particular responsibilities will come under one. I think the range of expertise required is simply too great.

Mr Lew also asked whether the powers of enforcement have been increased or remained the same. Yes, the answer is that they have remained the same. He asked whether the Director of Primary Production Department is the same person as the Director-General of Agri-food and Veterinary Authority. The answer is yes, he is the same person.

Mr Seng Han Thong asked about the transfer of officers to the new statutory board. As I have said, the Bill provides for the transfer of these officers from the department, a Government department, to a statutory board on terms no less favourable than what they are getting today. I realise that some of the officers today who are non-pensionable will lose the option to convert if they were to transfer over to the AVA. My officers have been looking into how we can provide a package which would allow the transfer to take place without adversely affecting the officers concerned. I understand the concerns of the officers. I understand the concerns of the union who represents them, as articulated by the Member just now.

Let me just say that at this point in time, we are actively exploring various options to try and tide over the officers when they transfer from the Department to a statutory board. Of course, we will certainly look into his suggestion of ex-gratia payment.

I turn now to Mr Simon Tay's point about GMO and the biodiversity protocol. As far as GMOs are concerned, I think he is right in saying that we should not panic the public. The media has given a lot of attention to GMOs in recent months. Some of the reporting has been quite sensational; some of the headlines, for example, Frankenstein food, and so on, and given rise to a lot of anxiety. But the fact of the matter is that there are genetically modified foods currently on our shelves in the supermarkets. But these have been determined to be safe for us to eat. There is no reason for us to suddenly confer upon such foods monster status. We have been eating it all this time. PPD monitors the food very closely, in line with the trends in the world. We take the necessary precautions. Food, which is not approved in other countries, will not be allowed into Singapore. Foods which have been identified as not safe, we will take immediate action to remove them from the shelves.

This is a very new field. There is a lot of discussion going on now. What we have done in Singapore is to try and follow the discussions that are going on in the international arena. We have formed in Singapore what is known as the Genetic Modification Advisory Committee (GMAC) which includes, PPD, ENV, National Science and Technology Board, universities and so on. We are trying to establish a procedure and a protocol whereby we can also label foods, track them, monitor them and assess whether they are safe or not, etc. This is an on-going process. We will continue to monitor how other countries tackle the issue. We will abide by what is international practice in this area.

As for the biosafety protocol, the Cartegena Protocol that the Member mentioned just now, I should inform him that the lead agency for the bio-diversity protocol is NParks, not PPD, because it goes beyond GMOs. It also talks about the bio-diversity in various countries. Having said that, we are also following the discussions in the Cartegena process very closely. He is correct in saying that there is a lot of politics involved in the discussions. Countries which are producers of one particular type of food obviously have a certain point of view. Countries which are net consumers have a different point of view. Ultimately, at the end of the day, invariably, the discussions go beyond just the science of it but go into the political arena. We are not producers of the food but consumers, and we will have to take an appropriate position commensurate with our own interests.

So far as agri-technology is concerned, the point that Mr Simon Tay made that we should try and restrict high technology farming because it may involve the use of high chemicals, let me assure him that high technology farming does not necessarily equal high chemical farming. In fact, the PPD is extremely strict about the level of contaminants and the use of pesticides in our food. First of all, we do a very stringent test on all the primary foods like vegetables and so on that are prone to high pesticides and high contaminants and having tested them, we are not averse to destroying those which contain a very level of pesticides. We go in further to the extent of banning imports from those particular farms. All those actions demonstrate that we take the issue of pesticides and contaminants in our food very seriously. It would be ironic for us to do so and be so specific and so tough on food being imported, and yet allow high-tech farming in Singapore which makes use of these high pesticides. It does not make sense and we certainly do not intend to take such an approach. I would like to reassure him on that. The fact is yes, where we can, we will encourage organic farming and some farms are already pursuing this option.

The other point is on citizen farming. I am not sure exactly what he means by citizen farming. If he means that we set aside plots of land for people to go and farm, that is, hobby farm, there are farms in Singapore located in the agri-technology parks which allow the city dwellers to go there to see what a vegetable looks like when it is growing in the ground and not in the supermarket. There are also farms that allow children to visit them, to look at the animals and so on. If that is what he means, then that has been provided for. But if he is talking about setting aside land around HDB estates for people to go there and farm, that is pretty difficult for us in land scarce Singapore.

The last point is about cats and dogs. I must confess that I am not familiar with the issue of whether we treat cats more favourably than dogs. If he would like to file a question, I can give him a more intelligent answer. At this stage, I must confess I do not know about that. I think I have answered all the questions.

Mr Lew Syn Pau: Sir, on the question regarding the Director of Primary Production, I think I should make myself a bit clearer because under clause 46 of the Bill, it says that any reference made to this person is actually a reference to the Director-General, Agri-food and Veterinary Services. Under the new statutory board, there is actually the position of the Chief Executive. But today, if the Director of Primary Production is the Chief Executive of a department, my question is: is he, under this new title, also the Chief Executive of the new statutory board?

Mr Mah Bow Tan: I may not have made myself clear. The Director-General, Agri-food and Veterinary Services, who has been appointed under the Animals and Birds Act, is the person who exercises the responsibilities of the previous Director-General of the Primary Production Department. Yes, he is the same person. But we have provided for a post of Chief Executive Officer. So the Chief Executive Officer may be the same person as the Director-General of the Agri-food and Veterinary Services as stated in the Bill.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Mr Mah Bow Tan].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.