Reviving Local Agriculture

Planting Hong Kong (2016-)

The folding page of the magazine shows the illustrator based on Edward Yiu Chung-yim's vision of "Garden City", a community that integrates agriculture and housing. Farmlands are placed in the middle, and the residential buildings are in the back, surrounded by some iconic local animals and plants such as Longan Lanternfly(Pyrops Candelaria), swallows, fiddler crabs and little egrets.

All chapters of the book are accompanied by meaningful illustrations or photographs, no wonder art critic Cha Ying Lam described Planting Hong Kong as follows: "With a light and innocuous literary flavor, wrapped in a strong and thick, and at the same time focusing on visual expressive agricultural discussion, this is "Planting Hong Kong"."[2]

(2) Presenting the changing times with people's stories

This issue features two people, including Uncle Chun, a farmer who has been farming in Ma Shi Po Village, Fanling for over 60 years, and Chan Kwok Wa, the owner of Chan Kun Kee Seeds Co. in Yuen Long, who is already the third generation. Their story is a testimony of the times when Hong Kong's agriculture grew from nothing, from prosperity to decline.

"Uncle Chun escaped the Japanese army and the political movement in China. What he wants is the rural life of "work at sunrise and rest at sunset". However, in front of excavators, does Uncle Chun still have a way to go? The sunset falls on the last puddle field in Ma Shi Po, which is the hometown that Uncle Jun can no longer lose. "——Excerpted from "Keeper of Hong Kong Happiness: Uncle Chun"

"Founder Chan Kwok Wa mentioned that there were nine seed shops in Yuen Long in the heyday, and now there are only three left. Since the 1980s, the real estate market has been booming, and some seed companies have also rented out ground-floor shops. The rental income is much higher than that of selling fertilizers and seeds. In the past, fertilizers were sold in large bags, but now, to fit the needs of family customers, fertilizers and pesticides are all in small bags and small bottles." - Excerpted from "An overview of Hong Kong's agricultural borders from Chan Kun Kee Seeds Co. (Part 1) "[3]

Content——

This issue focused more on the academic aspect

Compared with the following three issues, which focus on more interviews with farmers, the content of the first issue is more focused on the academic level. From infographics that illustrate Dr. Edward Yiu’s “Garden City” idea, the publication of an article by teacher Chu Yiu Kwong on the relationship between farmers and land from the perspective of historical research, and a series of articles by farmer Chow Sze Chung, who sorted out the local agricultural situation from post-war government documents.

(1) Garden City (Edward Yiu) - a sustainable development model combining agriculture and communities [4]

Concept: From the basis of housing planning, develop a community design with "four zeros" output (zero energy consumption, zero emission, zero food consumption, and zero drainage) to respond to the current needs of Hong Kong and the earth.

Method: Re-plan a small community with a population of about 10,000 people. All the kitchen waste produced in this residential community can be recycled as fertilizer for planting. This small community requires about 50 hectares of farmland to consume all the food waste in the community and turn it into food. If vegetables are produced, a self-sufficiency rate of 16% can be achieved.

At the same time, before explaining the vision of the “Garden City”, Planting Hong Kong also uses illustrations to show the problems caused by Hong Kong's heavy reliance on imported food. Some of the criticisms are listed below:

(i) High carbon living. The carbon footprint per capita for Hong Kong is 5.5 tons per year, much higher than China’s 3.9 tons;
(ii) Low food self-sufficiency. The food self-sufficiency rate in Hong Kong is only 1.9%. Singapore, Beijing, and Taiwan are 5%, 20%, and 32% respectively;
(iii) High level of food waste disposal. The daily food waste disposal amount of Hong Kong people per capita is 0.4 kg, while that in South Korea and Taiwan are 0.3 kg and 0.2 kg.

(2) Seeing the Countryside in Ma Shi Po (Chu Yiu Kwong) - Reflections on the Writing of Oral History of Villagers by Teachers and Students [5]

In 2007, the Hong Kong government announced the ‘North East New Territories New Development Areas Planning’, and the Ma Shi Po Village in Fanling was included in the government-business land exchange scheme. Since the farmland was bought by real estate developers, Ma Shi Po was turned into ruins. History teacher Chu Yiu Kwong led the students into Ma Shi Po Village. Teachers and students worked together to write an oral history of the villagers, aiming to show the local customs and practices of non-indigenous villages in the New Territories after the second world war. This article writes his reflections on the two years of local rural oral history education, which not only examines local secondary school education but also affirms the significance of oral history education. Some of the highlights of this article are listed below:

(i) Hong Kong education ignores small history
"The images of Hong Kong that students see are nothing more than grand discourses on 'modernization' and 'Chineseness', but they cannot see the narrow image of 'countryside'.";
"The so-called "local" is the history of a few big clans of walled villages who came to Hong Kong from China or the modern 'myth' of Hong Kong from "a small fishing village to a big city". The history of "scattered villages" made up of post-war refugees was excluded from "local". "

(ii) Whether teachers are aware of themselves as members of the community as a prerequisite for oral history teaching
"Palmer (1998) pointed out that the most important issue in teaching is not "what to teach" or "how to teach", but "who is teaching", he emphasized the identity and integrity of teachers, that is, teachers can internalize knowledge into beliefs...that is, before discussing 'how' to introduce oral history in rural areas, the more important question is: 'who' does oral history teaching in rural areas."

(iii) Students develop emotions from interviews
"It can be seen from the students' feedback that the interview process has a greater impact on the students than the oral historical materials obtained from the interviews... The villagers' narratives prompt the students to think about their way of life, and the students can also feel the villagers' feelings on the place in the narrative.";
"Yip Hon Ming (2001) believed that Hong Kong history has always lacked perceptual historical knowledge, and it is difficult for students to feel the target person in the process of learning history, which just echoes the analysis of Flinders, Noddings & Thornton (1986), emotion is the emptiness of the school curriculum, oral history teaching fills the emotional void..."

(3) Agriculture is not a poor relative - A review of Hong Kong's post-war agriculture series (1) (Chow Sze Chung)

One of the main targets of Planting Hong Kong is to make Hong Kong people more aware of the local agricultural history. From this article by Chow Sze Chung, we can learn some of the historical facts about Hong Kong's agriculture that are rarely known to Hong Kong people. We have extracted some of the points.
(i) Before the war, Hong Kong agricultural products were popular export goods
"The production of rice farmers in the New Territories before the war was once the top grade exported to New York. After the war, white rice was banned from exporting, so it was supplied to wealthy households in the urban area. Tomatoes were also a famous export product; sweet potato leaves were grown for pig feed; fresh vegetables were a necessity for the industrial population of Kowloon and the New Territories..."

(ii) Before the opening of the Lion Rock Tunnel, the shipping cost for local vegetables may be higher than that of the imported one
"Kowloon/Hong Kong Island is separated by a Lion Rock to the New Territories (the Lion Rock Tunnel opened in 1967). The transportation cost of vegetables imported from other parts of Guangdong via waterways is not necessarily higher than shipped from Yuen Long, Lantau, or Sai Kung."

(iii) The construction of Mui Wo Pier is to encourage the pig industry
"According to the 1951 annual report, the new pier built at Silver Mine Bay on Lantau Island was intended to stimulate the development of pig raising and vegetable gardens and facilitate the transportation of agricultural products to the urban area. Human waste collected by the Urban Council was processed into cheap fertilizer and sold to vegetable farmers in the New Territories. Urban and rural, production and consumption are organically integrated.”
(Editor's note: The article refers to the first-generation Mui Wo Pier that opened in 1950. The current Mui Wo Pier opened in 1981)

(iv) Post-war local agricultural peak, related to Hong Kong’s industrial development
"The civil war in China led to political instability, which gradually intensified to the founding of the People's Republic of China. since China was involved in the Korean War, the United Nations then imposed a trade embargo. Hong Kong became a big isolated island, and textbooks tell us that these conditions had created an opportunity for the development of Hong Kong’s secondary industry—that is, industry. At the same time, the colonial government made great efforts to divert water from the north to the south, and to supply food for the industrial population in the urban area through the development of agriculture.”

Content——

(1) Rediscover Hong Kong from the stories of ten old farmers

"Ten independent stories of callous hands and feet form a whole, and we discover that the old farmer's half-life review can connect the fragmented cognitions of politics, economy, and culture. We not only re-acquainted the farmers but also re-observed Hong Kong where they live." - Editor's Note of "Summer Solstice: The Old Farmer's Apocalypse”

This research selects three points, which can be seen from the interviews of old farmers in Hong Kong:

(i) History of the New Territories/Outlying Islands

- "In the mid-1970s, Wong Yun Shing settled in Ho Sheung Heung. At that time, there were not many people in Ho Sheung Heung, and the land was abandoned. No one was planting, but there were fishing ponds to raise freshwater fish. Wong Yun Shing opened up the farmland in Ho Sheung Heung and started farming." (Wong Yun Shing ,Ho Sheung Heung, Sheung Shui);

- "In 1957, the British Hong Kong government built the Shek Pik Reservoir, and the river in Mui Wo was cut off from its water source, making it unsustainable to grow rice locally. At this time, many people from Bao'an and Dongguan moved to Hong Kong, brought vegetable growing techniques and vegetable seeds to Mui Wo, and Uncle He’s family also learned how to grow vegetables from these new neighbors and transformed into vegetable farmers.” (Uncle He, Pak Ngan Heung, Mui Wo);

- "He used to farm more than ten d.c. of land (1 d.c.= 674 square meters or 7,260 square feet), but now there are only two d.c. left. He used to divert water into the farmlands from a small stream by himself, however after the government built Kam Pok Road, the water source was cut off, and the Drainage Services Department was responsible for pumping water into the fields to ensure that he had enough irrigation water. Uncle Chow said that this year, it was possible to plant a round of crops before the rainy days, but the water pump of the Drainage Services Department was broken, and there is still no water supply today. Without water, there is no way to plant. There is no other way but to wait, they said they are making arrangements. He grinned and took another puff. (Uncle Chow, Ngau Tam Mei, Yuen Long)

(ii) Famous crops in different parts of Hong Kong

- Chuen Lung watercress: "In the past, local farmers mostly ordered watercress seeds from Chuen Lung, Tai Mo Shan. Because Chuen Lung has high mountains and cool mountain water, the watercress can be kept in summer." (Wong Yun Shing, Ho Sheung Heung, Sheung Shui);

- Wa Shan Village Lotus Pond Kailan (Ho-tong Chinese Kale) and Red Onion: "In addition to Lotus Pond Kailan, the vicinity of Wa Shan Village is also famous for planting red onions. Perhaps the sandy soil is suitable for planting flowers." (Uncle Chow, Wa Shan Village, Sheung Shui);

- Hung Shui Kiu Celery: "Of course, not only Mr. Lam grows celery in Hung Shui Kiu, but Mr. Lam is not the only one who grows celery every day. From the 1970s to the 1990s, close to the end of the 12th month of the Chinese calendar, farmers queued up at the co-operative vegetable station to sell their vegetables from Hung Shui Kiu Market to Shek Po Wai.” (Mr Lam, Shek Po Village, Hung Shui Kiu);

- Ma Shi Po Spring Onion: "Mr. Lai entered the industry in the 1980s and has grown the famous Ma Shi Po spring onion. When Mr. Lai talked about spring onions, four out of ten sentences were ‘good selling’, and the glorious years were particularly profound." (Mr. Lai, Ma Shi Po Village, Fanling)

(iii) Local agricultural changes

- "Before 1997, I was able to earn a living by farming. After that, it was a lot worse. In the past, I ordered 300 packs of chemical fertilizer every winter, it cost HKD30 each, to grow ten d.c. of watercress. Now I order 270 packs, which cost HKD300 each. However, the price of vegetables has never risen!” (Wong Yun Shing ,Ho Sheung Heung, Sheung Shui);

- "After 1997, more and more cheap vegetables from mainland China can be found in Morning Wholesale Market. The production cost of Hong Kong farmers was relatively high. Seeing that mainland dishes were rushing to the market at ultra-low prices, they had no choice. Wong Yun Shing lasted until 2007 and finally stopped growing watercress, the last time he planted watercress was in 2006, the wholesale market in Chang Sha Wan received six cents a pound, and Morning Wholesale Market was 4 to 5 HKD." (Wong Yun Shing ,Ho Sheung Heung, Sheung Shui);

- "In the most prosperous years of agriculture here, farmers were selling through the cooperative, and the cooperative arranged the ferry to ship the vegetables to the Sai Wan vegetable market to sell. The cooperative paid four or five cents a pound to collect the cabbage, and it would be dumped if it could not be sold. Having said that, the yield was high, the vegetables had to be harvested overnight, and the volume was too high, making it impossible to sell them on their own. Besides, the fertilizer only cost tens of HKD per pack at that time, compared with the current price of more than 300HKD, and the planting cost was much lower. Over the years, fewer and fewer people are farming in Pak Ngan Heun, and there are only four or five old farmers left. "(Uncle He, Pak Ngan Heung, Mui Wo);

- "Until 2015, Li PoPo (means an elderly woman in Chinese) was planning to retire, and several young people came to extend the life of the farmland, and also started a "love-hate" partnership with Li PoPo. The young people tried out the natural farming method, they advocated not using any pesticides, not burning the grass, and keeping the microorganisms in the soil as much as possible. During the experiment, there were inevitably more insects than before. Li PoPo was anxious and heartbroken when she saw it, she said: "I woke up at five and six o'clock in the morning and I saw the worms were having a party, and I had high blood pressure after seeing it. But those vegetables love them now, listen to them, don't listen to me anymore, I won’t bother anymore!" Li PoPo said she will ignore them by one side, and went to the farmland at the same time. "(Sister Lin, Shui Lau Hang, Ping Che);

(2) Ten supplementary technical articles or behind stories

At the end of each farmer's interview, there is a local agricultural technical article or postscript related to the interview. The technical article has a wide range of contents, including changes in the cooperation mode of New Territories’ vegetable production and marketing, how the government builds ponds to cut off the water sources of farmlands, and also deciphers some common misunderstandings about agriculture, etc. Writing some hard factual numbers to add context to the farmer's life story.

(i) Morning of the New Territories’ Vegetables Production and Marketing Cooperation (Lo Yin Yi), below are some excerpts:

//"The British Hong Kong Government established the Vegetable Marketing Organization in 1946, and the Fanling Vegetable Marketing Co-operative Society Ltd was established in 1951 to operate a vegetable station (Chang Sha Wan Wholesale Vegetable Market). The three major tasks include protecting the rights and interests of members in production, transportation, and marketing, stabilizing the vegetable supply in Hong Kong, and promoting communication between the Hong Kong government and farmers.

The output of vegetables in Hong Kong soared to 150,000 tons starting from 1966. In 1967, the riot broke out, and the output of vegetables in Hong Kong exceeded 180,000 tons, which opened the 20-year peak of vegetable planting in Hong Kong. This situation lasted until 1986, scholars called it the ‘Vegetable Revolution in the New Territories ’.

In 1978, when the Mainland implemented reform and opened up, some farmers from the New Territories of cooperatives went north to Shenzhen and leased land to open vegetable farms for Hong Kong. Mainland vegetables flooded into the non-official Vegetable Marketing Organization distribution channels (such as Morning Market). Local vegetable increase in supply sharply has suppressed the price of vegetables, and the co-operatives have encountered some financial difficulties. The Audit Commission pointed out last year that in the 10 years from 2005 to 2006 to 2014 to 2015, the sales volume of the Vegetable Management Office dropped by 40%. It suggested that the government should speed up the redevelopment of the Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Vegetable Market and vacate the land for housing development. "//

(ii) Millet farmers in the age of the big pond (Cha Ying Lam) - twelve ponds were established in the 1970s

//"Looking at Hong Kong, old villages and farmland have been relocated, and rice cultivation has declined, not only because of the development of many new towns in the New Territories, but also because large-scale reservoir projects such as Tai Lam Chung, Shek Pik, Plover Bay, and High Island Reservoir, intercepted the water originally used by the villagers to the town. The redistribution of water resources is one of the reasons for the internal changes in the industry and the structural transformation of the economy.” //

(iii) Clarify misinformation about kale

//"Another online quote about kale is also based on a falsehood: Su Shi's literary “Laotao fu” (A rhymed prose of the epicurean) wrote: 'Kale is like a fungus, crispy and beautiful.' Many print media are also cited directly. However, there is no such sentence in the "Laotao Fu" of Su Shi. This sentence comes from another work "Walking to the Vegetable Garden after the Rain"... by Su Shi, he wrote it when he was demoted to Ling Nan in his later years and lived in Huizhou, Guangdong Province——" Lotus Pond Kailan Check"// (Editorial Department)

(iv) How ecology and agriculture coexist

//"The Conservancy Association, an environmental protection organization, has launched a plan for the conservation of grass sparrows in Long Yuen, employing farmers to grow aquatic crops, such as rice, arrowhead, and Chinese water chestnut, so that migratory and resident birds living in Hong Kong have a rich environment to live in. Because this is a conservation plan, the farmer can let go and let the birds eat crops. In the context of fewer farmers in Hong Kong, and there is more abandoned farmland, it can be regarded as a way to keep farming the farmland. However, this is not a sustainable agricultural system, because It does not appear to produce food, it exists because of ecological conservation. Between agriculture and ecology, is it a life or death struggle? There is not much discussion about this in Hong Kong. In Taiwan, some people replace organic certification with ecological certification, as an indicator of eco-friendly planting; the method of certification is to maintain maximum crop production while taking care of the ecological needs of the farmland. Guantian, south of central Taiwan, is a vast wetland where farmers plant rice and water chestnuts while conservating Pheasant-tailed Jacanas. As a result, the rice represented by Pheasant-tailed Jacanas - water chestnut rice is produced."// - "Farmers are ecological killers" (TV Yuen)

(3) Five Old Farmer Apocalypses

(i) Positive outlook for the local agricultural market:
"Anyone with a little bit of business experience will understand that no matter opening a grocery store or a restaurant, the operator must have a stop-loss point. No one can lose indefinitely. So, when we see that there are still old farmers planting today, can you still say that planting cannot earn a living? Could an old farmer have more capital than Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka Shing, to run a loss-making business for thirty years?"

(ii) Part-time worker and part-farmer to the full-time farmer:
"Planting has always exercised the farmer's mind and body, allowing the body to operate under a self-created program. The body will be tired, but it can rest rhythmically. Over time, physical fitness and planting area, market price, market demand, geographical resources, and social status all joined together.”

(iii) Inheritance direction of local agriculture: master-apprentice inheritance:
"We can divert the resources invested in agricultural schools into appropriate methods of training agricultural talents, such as agronomic apprenticeships."

(iv) The agricultural park is a blindfolded method. 3,000 hectares of farmland may become a playground for real estate developers:
"An agricultural park can only have one kind of soil, water, and climate. We cannot replicate Chuen Lung, Guan Lam, Wa Shan, Hung Shui Kiu, and Ma Shi Po in one agricultural park.";

"Every piece of farmland cannot be missing, except for the protection of farmland, it actually includes the protection of soil and water and microclimate in different regions. Just like our ecological conservation. We cannot replace a natural ecological environment with a zoo."

(v) Your land bank is their farmland for food production:
"People who think they understand economics and planning regard agricultural land as an asset in the annual report of a listed company. For farmers, the land bank that appears on the financial page means that agricultural land in the New Territories has been enclosed and abandoned."

In the last issue, we heard stories from old farmers, they talked about how they grew from nothing, and how to preserve and adopt new changes. The story of the new farmers will tell the original intention and cherished value of entering the industry, and we can hear the hope and despair of Hong Kong agriculture from their mouths. The same occupation, and different backgrounds, but they also like farming.

content——

(1) New farmers banquet

In the beginning, more than 30 pages of this issue were used to record a group of young farmers chatting with each other during dinner at the Mapopo Community Farm at the end of 2017, which they brought along with their vegetable seeds. This research excerpts some of the conversations:

(i) Why are there so many rumors about organic farming?
Chan Pat Fan: It's because everyone needs to show their faces and sell vegetables in the organic vegetable market.
TV: I think that when it comes to organic farming, the first thing is why I can grow it, but you can't. Then you already have a question mark.

(ii) Talking about agricultural parks:
Chan Pat Fan: Agricultural Park is the end of the game, it's not a park (In Cantonese, park(jyun4) and end(jyun4) are homophones)...it's so meaningless, in Tsiu Keung… it’s no need to build an agricultural park.
Ka Lok: I think the land issue is the most important issue in agriculture, and other issues such as technology and even human issues are the secondary issue. There is no reason for you to farm without fields. The Agricultural Park aims at hydroponics...However, there is farmland in Hong Kong, as everyone said, why should we carry out hydroponics?

(iii) The future of agriculture
Wu Hand: The operation of the Society for Indigenous Learning(SoIL) is that we rent a piece of land, which is close to 18,000 to 20,000 HKD, and the operation mode has always been that the farmer only needs to pay a very low rent, and then friends who have a job will share the rent... …it’s not to share but to bear the rent. Nowadays, Hong Kong's agricultural land with convenient transportation is often at this price... Do you want to replicate this kind of agricultural land that is shared by supporters in the agriculture model? Whether you want it is the first question, I don't really want it, but if you don't want it, it's hard to find a place..."

Chan Pat Fan: Dead end, it was like this N years ago... I have met many farmers facing the same situation in recent years, some landlords say come, let me offer you low rent land, and sign a five-year lease... Then it took a year and a half for opening up the land, connect water and electricity, farm for just a year or two, and the landlord will tell you: remember it is only a five-year lease, now it has been two years. I have seen a lot of cases, they take advantage of you, and the land was originally like a forest. e-farm in Fanling, I watched him open up wasteland, it used to be like a country park. The landlord rented it out to them cheaply, they originally had to go through a garden to get in. If they didn't make the path, they couldn't rent it out. There are many factors. ... The landlord gave him a very low rent, and now he raise the rent. If you do well, he will raise the rent. I heard that the rent has increased a lot, landlords are always like this.

Chow Sze Chung: After farming, I actually felt that farming was the right thing to do, regardless of various factors, such as urban development, land problems, etc., those things we can’t control. If you don’t think of those things, just growing vegetables, it’s basically a very fulfilling career. At one point, I can grow some food and supply it for people to eat. People eat happily and healthily. I am happy with the farmland, the farmland is happier, and the insects are happy with me. What could be better than doing something so simple?

(2) Ten new farmers' interviews

Then in this issue, they interviewed ten new farmers in the form of Q&A, asking about their original intentions and techniques.

-Original intention: "At the beginning, I thought that farming was related to the development of the whole society and urban planning. We couldn't start from the big policy level. I thought it would be better to start from my own life, do it point by point to maintain farmland for production and agricultural use." Chung Chi Ho (Sang Wood Goon)

-Sales: "Mainly rely on farmers’ markets, direct sales, and wholesale through online platforms. Without these, I can hardly support myself. "It was very good in the past, we didn't need to sell vegetables ourselves, but now we can't even support one person for selling vegetables to the Vegetable Marketing Organization. VMO tried to collect Indian lettuce for two HKD a pound!” he said. “In the past, seven brothers and sisters plus parents, nine people in total could live by farming on one piece of farmland, but now only enough for the two of us to live on, and neither of us has any extra money.” (Ho Moon Yee of Moon Kee Organic Farm)

- Agricultural park policy: "The details of the agricultural park and other new agricultural policies are unknown, so it is difficult to evaluate. The words 'high-tech' have very different values from my own. 'The sustainable agriculture we want to do is actually committed to making people are free from dependence on oil, but all the government’s infrastructure, operations, and agricultural policies are directed towards relying on oil.” He said. “Burning a lot of oil to grow vegetables; burying farmland and filling concrete to develop hydroponics, is this really good?” (Wu Hand, SoIL)

- Hope for the future: "'I hope I can become smarter sooner and plant better.' She said. 'I have started planting this spring, and I hope next spring will be better.'" (Winnie Kong, Mui Wo Winnie The Farm)

(3) Agricultural History Articles

When talking about the rise and fall of local agriculture, there is often an argument that "in the early 1980s, the reform and opening up of mainland China led to the decline of local agriculture"[6]. However, the farmer Chow Sze Chung wrote "Review of Hong Kong's post-war agriculture series (2) Local agriculture in 1987 - Starting with Poisoned Vegetables and Quotas”, taking the poisonous choy sum incident that occurred in local agriculture in 1987 and the strict implementation of export quotas by the mainland government to Hong Kong farmers, try to illustrate that “if local agriculture gradually declined in the 1980s, what happening at the same time is, at least some Hong Kong vegetable farmers and businessmen are passionate, and actively entering the mainland agriculture industry in order to supply the needs of Hong Kong market."

"Reviewing Hong Kong's Post-War Agriculture Series (2) Local Agriculture in 1987 - Starting with Poisonous Vegetables and Quotas" (Chow Sze Chung), part of the content:

(i) The 1970s was the peak of local vegetable production
//"Looking at the ten-year trends from 1983 to 1992, 1987 can be seen as a turning point for the local vegetable industry - the turning point was not even dramatic enough to sound the alarm immediately. Judging purely from the data, local vegetable production remained at the level of 170,000 to 180,000 tons in the 1970s, the highest decade in Hong Kong's history. It began to decline slightly in the first half of the 1980s. Compared with 1988, the output in 1987 dropped by about 10%, but there were still about 140,000 tons. But since this year, the decline has begun to be obvious. The self-sufficiency ratio of local production has gradually fallen below 30%, in the late 1990s after the 1997 handover, it quickly dropped to single digits. In 1987, it was the last high point in the sales of local vegetables, which was close to 360 million HKD, this peak has remained unchallenged for thirty years. "//

(ii) The transformation of production relations from the poisonous choy sum incident in 1987
//Food safety has always been the most important issue in Hong Kong's discussion of imported food, and this "always" can be traced back at least to the "Methamidophos poisoning choy sum" incident. Beginning at the end of November 1987, some citizens reported poisoning symptoms including numbness of hands and feet, dizziness, diarrhea, and vomiting after eating choy sum. Over a few days, more than 100 people had to be sent to the hospital for treatment. However, in the first few days of the incident, it can only be confirmed that all the poisoned people all lived in Sham Shui Po; secondly, they both ate choy sum. //

//However, the source of the poisonous choy sum has not yet been confirmed. There was news that the problematic choy sum originated from a farmer in Yuen Long. After investigation, the authorities believed that it was a false report. In addition, a vegetable seller in Shun Ning Road Market, Sham Shui Po, where many patients bought the vegetables, said that "most of the choy sum comes from Dongguan and Shenzhen." //

//What the author is trying to explain is that the relationship between Hong Kong and the mainland in the 1980s was like some kind of "Trojan horse", a Trojan horse whose roles were reversed. Most of the mainland vegetables delivered to Hong Kong incessantly are produced by local farmers who are packaged as "imported dishes from the mainland". //

(iii) Hong Kong businessmen growing vegetables in Shenzhen from the perspective of vegetable export quotas
//In fact, the response of the Shenzhen authorities does not need to be interpreted as an evasion. There is also occasional tension between the Shenzhen authorities and the farming industry. In March of the same year, the poisonous vegetable incident occurred, and the local vegetable wholesale market experienced a shortage of supply. The incident was caused by the "strict implementation" of vegetable export quotas by the Shenzhen authorities, which required a significant reduction in the number of vegetables exported from Shenzhen to Hong Kong, with a drop of more than 60% during the peak period, and the overall vegetable price in the local wholesale market soared by 45%. //

//In the context of Hong Kong and Shenzhen separated by the Shenzhen River in the 1980s, the so-called export quotas did not simply refer to the protection measures implemented by the British-Hong Kong government on the import of mainland China in order to protect the local market. China's quota policy has a long history. In the context of the reform and opening up of the local market in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the quota policy was not only a way for the mainland government to earn foreign exchange by exporting agricultural products to Hong Kong, "incoming planting" is a way of governance in the name of investing in vegetable farms in the Mainland. For Hong Kong businessmen who grow vegetables in Shenzhen, the quota can be a kind of compensation or a way out of their original livelihood in the New Territories, but it also substantially rewrites the meaning of the so-called "imported" agricultural products. //

Key point: The theme of this issue is Tsiu Keng, which is the selected location of the Agriculture Park. This issue explains that Tsiu Keng is still the most active and productive agricultural area in the New Territories, and there are still a large number of local farmers and farmland in Tsiu Keng, pointing out the absurdity of disrupting farmland and building an indoor Agriculture Park.

content——

(1) Photographs to record the natural water resources of Tsiu Keng
Three sets of seventeen black-and-white photos each illustrate the unique geographical environment of Tsiu Keng. There are Tai To Yan Mountain in the south and Kai Kung Leng Mountain in the west. Endless streams of mountain water flow through Tsiu Keng.

(2) Interview Tsiu Keng Farmer Man Gor(Gor means older brother in Chinese); from Tat Kee Garden to Today Garden
Tsiu Keng farmer Man Gor’s father settled in Tsiu Keng in the 1970s and started Da Kee Garden. Man Gor’s family is a big family, with 10 members in total, when Man Gor was a child, his family would farm together. Man Gor once left Tsiu Keng to work in the city, and when he was nearly 40 years old, he returned to Tsiu Keng to focus on farming. But the peaceful life was destroyed in September 2017, when the government announced the establishment of an agricultural park in Tsiu Keng. Man Gor became the first farmer to be affected by the agricultural park program.

"Man Gor's home, Tak Kee Garden, was even uprooted by the agricultural park. Some farmers who grew up in Tsiu Keng returned to Tsiu Keng to see what was going on. They felt that the government's agricultural park plan actually further damaged the agricultural environment and resources of Tsiu Keng. The family, including Man Gor's sister Angela and their neighbors Chung Ling and Erica, felt that they needed to do something to give Tsiu Keng a fresh start. Agriculture should develop, but it was definitely not the government's plan to destroy the existing agricultural environment. How to do it? They found like-minded friends, rebuilt the abandoned chicken farm, gradually accumulated energy, attracted young people to reclaim, and named this place: Today’s Garden.”

After Man Gor’s house was taken back, he found a place to rent in Tsiu Keng. The place was smaller... The neighbor Liu's family garden, and the house was gone, but the home was still there. The older brother re-planned Liu's farmland and named the place "Today's Garden".

//" Farming here, I don't need to be controlled by people, it's God who controls me. I won’t blame others for the rain and drought. These are not controllable by people, but the agricultural park is controlled by people! People, the government In the face of so many people, have they ever thought about what the people who use the agricultural park need? We have been here for 50 years and have feelings for the entire Tsiu Keng. We do not want to destroy Tsiu Keng. You may beautify and improve the original things. I absolutely agree. But you are now standardizing the whole Tsiu Keng as if it were a factory. This is not what I want. I am not here to work. We, farmers want to be self-sufficient. We generally earn less than the minimum wage, so why are they still farming here? Because we live our lives freely and meaningfully; we do not seek material things, but the soul.”

Man Gor expressed the thoughts of many farmers in Tsiu Keng; the one who is firm and sincere in farming, "it’s very heavy. I wonder if the department officers listened to it, do they feel that these people are obstructing others from doing things and are stubborn? The people who are eating vegetables, did they use actions and choices to give farmers the respect they deserve? The excavating team stopped temporarily, and Tsiu Keng turned back to a calm place for a while, waiting for the next attack. //

(3) Seven Tsiu Keng farmer's interviews

In addition to Man Gor, this period also visited Sing Jie(older sister in Chinese), Mrs. Ling, Sau Sau, Lan Jie, Mr. Tong, Uncle Kun Wing, and Wai Gor, who have also cultivated in Tsiu Keng for many years.

The back cover writes: "The agricultural policy of the British Hong Kong period was to support farmers. Today's new agricultural policy of the Hong Kong government is to use capital-intensive agriculture to attack small farmers; the agricultural measures of the British Hong Kong period were to set up a wide range of water conservancy systems to facilitate farmers' production. Today, the Hong Kong government has Hong Kong's new agricultural policy to build a two-way road in the heart of the agricultural area (for unknown reasons), forcing small farmers who were previously farming to move out. Hong Kong is becoming more and more unfamiliar, and farmers have to raise their heads to encounter the storm from all directions. In this issue of “Planting Hong Kong, we went to the Tsiu Keng agricultural area. The government wants to build a high-tech agricultural park in Tsiu Keng.”

In addition to publishing "Planting Hong Kong" magazine, they have also tried to build a vegetable selling platform since 2017, "Let farmers and buyers see each other!"[7]

After five years of publication and a total of four issues, "Planting Hong Kong" has gradually changed from focusing on academics and solid "hard" historical materials to focusing on the stories of local farmers. Perhaps this is the hope that the Hong Kong people will understand that the vegetables we eat every day are not produced from distant farms, but are actually linked to the survival and life, past, present, and future of a group of Hong Kong farmers. At the same time, they hope to bring the off-the-ground development thinking back to the local experience. The local dishes are nurtured and grown from this piece of Hong Kong’s soil and water, and if the land is destroyed, there is no turning back.

Planting Hong Kong's Website：http://www.plantinghk.com/