Hong Kong’s skyline farms harvest more happiness than food

(27 Mar 2018) LEADIN With its skinny office blocks and tall apartment towers Hong Kong might seem like an unlikely place for farming. But now thanks to its sunny roof tops and epic skyscapers a bunch of urban farmers are taking their plants to the skies. STORYLINE: High above downtown Hong Kong’s bustling, traffic-clogged streets, a bunch of office workers are keeping busy. But they’re not sending emails or signing contracts - they’re harvesting a bumper crop of lettuce on top of a skyscraper. It’s rooftop farming taken to the extreme and is as much about attaining wellbeing as providing food. These volunteers are picking lettuce on the decommissioned helipad of the 146-metre (480-foot)-high roof of the 38-story Bank of America tower. The scenery: a vertiginous panorama of glass office towers framed by lush mountain peaks and Victoria Harbour. The farm is run by Rooftop Republic, a three-year-old startup whose founders are tapping growing interest in organic food and taking advantage of unused roof space in the cramped, high-rent city. “I think first of all we practice organic farming practices, we work with local organic farmers and I think we’re quite stringent about that. And by nurturing the soil and after growing over a long period of time we actually do see that organic vegetables that are grown with organic farming practises,“ says Rooftop Republic co-founder Michelle Hong. The finance and trading hub of Hong Kong has rural suburbs, but farming only takes up 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of its land and agriculture accounts for 0.1 percent of its economic output. Rooftop Republic’s founders say the appetite for their services is growing among Hong Kongers who are seeking a more sustainable lifestyle and are concerned about where their food comes from. “I think people want to have a bit more control and also to have more trust because if I grow it myself I know what went in and I can trust whatever is coming out of that plot,“ adds Hong. Hong Kong imports almost all of its food, much of it from mainland China. Public awareness about food safety in the former British colony has risen after countless food contamination scandals on the mainland.    Rooftop Republic has set up on average one farm a month since it was founded and now manages a total of 36 covering more than 30,000 square feet (about 2,800 square metres), including one in mainland China, according to Hong. It also provides workshops for companies, building owners, schools and community groups. The Bank of America farm was a milestone because it was the first in the city’s financial district. The company has since set up two more in the area and is looking at a few more sites. Vegetables from the tower are donated to a food bank for use in lunch boxes and are distributed to the needy. Some of its other farms are on hotels or restaurants which use the herbs, eggplants and melons for dishes on their menus. Plenty of other groups or individuals have started cultivating their own rooftop vegetable gardens according to Matthew Pryor, a Hong Kong University architecture professor who has counted at least 60 and thinks there are a lot more he doesn’t know about. Pryor’s research found approximately 1,500 rooftop farmers in the city, cultivating a total area of about 1.5 hectares. He thinks there’s potential for that to easily grow to 50,000 people working on a suitable rooftop area of 600 hectares. He helped set up a farm on top of a university building where volunteers, mainly staff, grow tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, lettuce, dragonfruit, papaya, beans, peas and squash. “So it’s awesome to be here.“ Find out more about AP Archive: Twitter: Facebook: ​​ Instagram: You can license this story through AP Archive: