Temasek Holdings chief executive Dilhan Pillay runs a $US290 billion ($417 billion) state-owned investment empire. But every quarter he spends up to two hours chatting to a man in Indonesia about fish.

Those lengthy calls with Bandung-based eFishery, a start-up so small it accounts for 0.01 per cent of Temasek’s portfolio, are emblematic of its quiet zeal for the business of food. The state of the world’s food supply, hurt by heatwaves that are wilting crops in Europe, China and the US, has found an unlikely crusader in Singapore, which has hardly any agriculture at all.

Bloomberg