Singapore has launched a government-backed program to steer private money into climate adaptation for Southeast Asian agriculture, anchored by a blended finance fund of up to US$500 million that the Monetary Authority of Singapore will oversee.

The program, called Scaling Projects and Investments for Resilience in Asia, or SPIRE Asia, was unveiled on Tuesday at the Singapore Pavilion at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Turkey, by Ravi Menon, Singapore's Ambassador for Climate Action. For banks, insurers and asset managers in the region, it adds a second Singapore-run blended finance vehicle alongside the country's existing decarbonization platform, this time aimed at farms and food supply chains rather than power plants and factories.

Three pillars, three agencies

SPIRE Asia has three parts. Enterprise Singapore will lead a data platform that links climate, agricultural and investment datasets, anchored by a Solutions Centre for Regional Smallholder Farmers that The Straits Times reported is due to launch by the end of 2027. Temasek Trust, the philanthropic arm of Temasek Holdings, will lead a market development facility that prepares early-stage projects and bundles small ones into portfolios large enough for investors.

The third part is the fund. It will combine catalytic capital with commercial money to finance agri-food companies that cannot borrow on commercial terms, Mr. Menon said. The government is prepared to put in catalytic capital alongside international partners, and details of the capital structure will be shared early next year, according to his published remarks. He said interest from development finance institutions, multilateral banks and commercial lenders had been "encouraging."

A steering committee of the National Climate Change Secretariat, MAS, Enterprise Singapore and Temasek Trust will coordinate the three pillars, TNGlobal reported.

Officials said the design came from talks with more than 60 stakeholders, including development banks, philanthropies and agribusinesses. Those talks identified three barriers: a lack of usable data, too few investment-ready projects and returns that are uncertain and slow to arrive. Mr. Menon said the lesson was to remove barriers to investment rather than simply add capital.

A large funding gap

The numbers Mr. Menon cited show why governments are turning to blended structures. The Asia-Pacific needs up to US$400 billion a year for climate adaptation, he said, but actual flows in 2021 and 2022 were US$34 billion, about one dollar for every twelve needed. Globally, agri-food systems received 20% of adaptation finance even though they account for 54% of costed adaptation needs in developing countries' national plans.

Singapore's interest is direct. The city imports more than 90% of its food, so poor harvests elsewhere in the region feed into its prices and supply. A study cited by The Straits Times found that average crop output in Southeast Asia could fall by as much as 10% in years with very strong El Nino events, with rice the most exposed of five major crops assessed. Climate risk to regional agriculture is already on lenders' radar, as Capital Times reported in coverage of banks' exposure to haze-hit palm oil planters.

Dawn Chan, head of capital innovation collaborative at Temasek Trust, told The Straits Times that some adaptation projects take 10 to 15 years to pay off, longer than the roughly 10-year life of a typical commercial fund. Blending in money from philanthropies and multilateral banks can make such projects financeable, she said.

Building on FAST-P

SPIRE Asia follows the model of Financing Asia's Transition Partnership, or FAST-P, Singapore's blended finance platform for decarbonization, which has a target size of US$5 billion. The government has pledged a grant of up to US$500 million to FAST-P, to be matched dollar for dollar by other catalytic capital, with the combined US$1 billion meant to draw in US$4 billion from banks, insurers and asset managers.

Progress there has been uneven. Of FAST-P's three funds, the Green Investments Partnership has US$800 million in commitments, the Energy Transition Acceleration Finance partnership has reached US$250 million, and the Industrial Transformation Programme is still working toward a first close, Mr. Menon said. FAST-P funds have deployed nearly US$240 million so far, including an eight-year bond for wind, solar and battery projects in India, and are helping to avoid more than one million tonnes of emissions a year.

Mr. Menon said SPIRE Asia would be judged on how much investment it mobilizes and on resilience results on the ground, with specific indicators still to be developed with partners. Singapore takes over the ASEAN chairmanship next year, which he said would give it a chance to push regional cooperation further. The next marker for investors is the fund's capital stack, which officials have said they will disclose early in 2027.