Here is our analysis of the new Agricultural Policy issued by the Hong Kong government.

The Pantheon 

The government is proposing to spend HKD 7 billion to encourage the development and growth of the agriculture sector by establishing a 80 hectare “Agri-Park”. While this is all well and good, the first question we must ask is: what is the governments track record in nurturing sectors other than real estate? The Pantheon of government schemes that produce nothing (other than taxpayer funded or subsidised construction projects) includes: the Science Park, the EcoPark, a CyberPort, an Innocentre and numerous others.

No Pain No Gain

The government will acquire privately-owned agricultural land (including land within the country park zone) from landowners to build the Agri-Park. In a market economy, when supply is fixed and demand increases (due to the government entering the market as a large buyer), prices will rise. The resulting increase in land rental cost will in effect be detrimental to existing farmers. This scheme will hurt the farmers that it is purportedly trying to help.

In this case the pain will be borne by the farmers and gain will be reaped by the construction industry, landowners and bureaucrats.

Innovative Bureaucrats: An Oxymoron 

A farmer’s investment is largely comprised of his time and effort in improving the land. Through weeding, cultivation, and enrichment of the soil a farmer creates an environment optimal for plant growth. Unlike a software company incubated in a technology park, the farmer cannot simply move. This scheme can only have been thought up by “innovative” bureaucrats whose experience of farming consists largely of playing FarmVille. Continue reading “Agri-Park”

Everyday, after finishing his field work at Mapopo community farm, Farmer Chi Ho can been seen collecting food waste from local restaurants and drink shops around Leun Wo Hui. He brings 100kg of egg shells, shredded coconut, soya meal, tea and coffee grounds back to the farm where it is composted and turned into organic plant nutrients used to grow vegetables. Since he works every day, this amounts to Herculean 3 tons per month of reclaimed waste.

Unlike the organic vegetables grown at Mapopo, most of the food we eat today is grown on large scale industrial farms, and shipped from hundreds if not thousands of miles aways. Our food waste, instead of being recycled back into plant nutrients, is discarded into the landfill.

According to government statistics, food waste constitutes  36% of total landfill waste. Hong Konger’s generate 1.99kg of waste per person per day (in Japan it is 1.71kg, Singapore 1.49kg, and South Korea 1.24kg) and our landfills will be full in a couple of years. The governments position is that this requires a massive expansion of landfills that are vigorously opposed by the public, the building of unpopular incinerators  and a few token food waste processing plants. Places such as Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have experienced decreases in landfill waste with the implementation of municipal waste charging fees and recycling programs. These common sense measures, while supported by the public, are opposed by the powerful business interests that select our political leaders.

Landfill expansion is only half the story when food waste is dumped into a landfill. When organic matter, such as food waste, enters our landfill it decomposes anaerobically. This results in the release of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more efficient at trapping heat than CO2. Continue reading “The Quiet Hero”

In a previous article we explored the benefits of urban farming in Hong Kong. The term “urban farming” is commonly used to describe what is in fact gardening – a leisure activity for city dwellers whose hobby is growing vegetables. Farming on the other hand is an industry focused on the production of food. As such, is has entirely different objectives, requirements, scale, methods and business models. Urban farming is subject to the same market forces that affect traditional field farming.

Urban farming, in the food production sense, faces two types of challenges: business and technical. The technical or horticultural challenges unique to urban farms include overcoming the limitations and micro-climate conditions specific to rooftops – which we will explore in the future. Here, we will address only the business challenges. These include (but are not limited to): government policy and space, financing and the business environment, and skilled labour and supplier base.

GOVERNMENT POLICY AND SPACE

The first challenge to farming of any kind is securing space. Government policy in Hong Kong explicitly and implicitly favours the property development sector. By definition, it does so at the expense of other sectors such as agriculture. Policies that favour property development encourage speculative, short-term investments that push farmers out of even rural land markets.

Urban farming could theoretically side-step these speculative side effects by putting to use rooftops that have virtually no other use. Unfortunately, the gap in rent between what would be sufficiently financially rewarding for a landlord and what would be financially sustainable for a farmer is simply too large to bridge. Continue reading “The Business of (Urban) Farming”

This article was updated in January 2016. Urban farming on rooftops has been gaining traction in cities around the world. Its rise can originally be traced to consumers increasing awareness of carbon emissions that result when our food travels hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the farm to our table. As an experienced urban farmer that grows on the rooftops of commercial buildings such … Continue reading Rooftop Farming in Hong Kong

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. In a recent Mingpao article titled “Farming can make money”, the purveyors of hydroponically grown produce tout many of its impressive benefits. Chief among them was food safety.  They rightly point out that much of China’s land is contaminated and its fresh water is polluted. This jeopardises our food safety since most of … Continue reading A Delicious Irony