Crops out of concrete: Farming Hong Kong’s urban island

Osbert Lam examines a long bean plant on his rooftop farm ‘Eco-Mama” on June 16. The farm is one of an estimated 300 urban farming projects that now populate the city.

Hong Kongers themselves have historically been resistant to the idea of farming as a suitable pastime. “It is the lowest of our traditional caste system. In traditional Chinese culture, if you’re good at nothing else, you work on the farm.”

By Benjamin Gottlie
CNN
June 29, 2011

Excerpt:

Lam’s farm — a humble 2,000 square feet — is one of an estimated 300 urban farming projects that now occupy Hong Kong’s high-rises, joining the broader, global movement of food sustainability projects in densely populated urban settings.

“Twenty years ago, locals thought that the soil here was dirty,” said Simon Chau, founder of the Produce Green Foundation, which manages Hong Kong’s first urban farm in Tsuen Wan. “Now, after 20 years, people have started to realize that it is rewarding and meaningful to grow something themselves and to eat it.”

But unlike the burgeoning urban farms of New York, Tokyo and Taipei, the city’s budding urban agriculture movement continues to run into problems as it tries to expand, according to architecture and engineering professor Sam Hui of the Hong Kong University.

“If we really want to see the maximum benefits of urban farming here (in Hong Kong), we have to create more rooftop farms,” said Hui, whose research focuses on sustainable agriculture and green roof use.

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