Everyday food resilience: household practices in wartime Singapore and the design of distributed urban food systems

Singapore’s highly regarded food security is founded on a paradox: despite importing about 90% of its food, it consistently ranks among the world’s most food-secure nations. This dependence on global trade leaves the city-state vulnerable to geopolitical disruptions, pandemics, and climate-related shocks. While current strategies focus on technological innovation and supply-chain resilience, less attention has been given to household-scale and culturally embedded forms of food resilience. This article examines how households in Singapore adapted to food scarcity during the Japanese Occupation (1942–1945), and what these experiences can contribute to contemporary discussions on urban agriculture and food system resilience. Drawing on historical scholarship, archival oral histories, vernacular recipes, and comparative wartime studies, the article explores everyday practices such as food substitution, improvisational cooking, home cultivation, preservation, and mutual aid. These strategies are analysed through food system resilience concepts of robustness, recovery, and adaptation. Singapore’s experience is considered alongside rationing and “victory garden” initiatives in Europe and North America, where scarcity reshaped food practices and public engagement with local food production. The article argues that these historical experiences offer valuable insights for developing urban food systems that combine technological innovation with decentralized household and community capacities, and proposes a “resilient pantry” framework for import-dependent cities.