Rooftop Farming Flourishes in Hong Kong

It is one of sev­eral such sites that have sprung up in Hong Kong’s con­crete jun­gle, as the appetite for organic pro­duce grows and peo­ple seek ways to escape one of the most densely pop­u­lated places on earth.

“I am hap­pier eat­ing what I grow rather than food I buy from super­mar­kets,” said Melanie Lam, a 28-year-old nurse, who comes to the “City Farm” in the Quarry Bay dis­trict of Hong Kong’s main island about twice a week.

“Compared to veg­eta­bles from the super­mar­ket, veg­eta­bles that I plant are sweeter and fresher. It gives me a greater sense of satisfaction.”

With most of the south­ern Chinese territory’s seven mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing in tower blocks and land prices sky-high, unused roofs are some of the few places in the most heav­ily pop­u­lated areas for bud­ding veg­etable gardeners.

The money-obsessed city has been late to latch on to rooftop farm­ing, which has been pop­u­lar in cities such as London and New York for years.

While there are no offi­cial fig­ures for the num­ber of sites, as no licence is needed to set one up, anec­do­tal evi­dence sug­gests their pop­u­lar­ity is growing.

“I think urban farm­ing is becom­ing more pop­u­lar… we have grown big­ger in a short time,” said Osbert Lam, the founder of “City Farm”, which has about 100 reg­u­lar gar­den­ers two years after opening.

There are 400 grow­ing boxes on the 10,000-square-foot (930-square-metre) rooftop avail­able to rent for between HK$150-200 ($20-25) a month each.

“People who come to the farm are so happy—It’s like a tran­quil­liser, it’s a way out,” added Lam.

In To Kwa Wan in the east of the Kowloon penin­sula, one of the founders of another rooftop farm says the project has given a boost to the neglected neigh­bour­hood, which has poor trans­port links and a pre­dom­i­nantly elderly population.

Chu Pui-Kwan and two friends came up with the idea of set­ting up a veg­etable gar­den on the unused rooftop of a 12-storey building.

Click here to read the rest of this arti­cle from AFP.