Pretoria News

ROOFTOP FARMS HELP PEOPLE RECONNECT WITH SUSTAINABLE FOOD

GARDENING CELIA CAZALE AFP

WITH their heads in the clouds and their hands in the soil, a group of office workers are busy harvesting the fruits of their labour on the roof of a Hong Kong skyscraper.

Invisible to those below, a sprawling garden of radishes, carrots and rhubarb is flourishing at the top of the 150m tall Bank of America tower in the city’s financial district.

The farm is among more than 60 that have sprouted across the space-starved city since 2015 – on decommissioned helipads, shopping mall rooftops and public terraces. This is thanks to initiatives like Rooftop Republic, a social enterprise which promotes urban farming.

Co-founder Andrew Tsui sees rooftop farms as a way for people to reconnect with how sustainable food can be produced in the current “instant-noodle city lifestyle” that sees so much waste.

“We are looking at how to identify underutilised spaces in the city and mobilise the citizens, the people, to learn about food," the 43-year-old said during a site inspection of the skyscraper’s garden.

Tsui believes Hong Kongers need to re-establish a relationship with what they eat, broken “since we started outsourcing food and relying on industrialised production”.

Government statistics show that Hong Kong throws out some 3 500 tons of food waste a day – the equivalent weight of 250 doubledecker buses. Less than a quarter is recycled. And around 90% of the food eaten by the city’s 7.5 million inhabitants is imported, mostly from mainland China.

But while Hong Kong is one of the most densely packed places on earth, there is still considerable space to grow food locally.

Tsui said some 7 million square metres of farmable area is currently cultivated. But more than 6 million square metres on the city’s rooftops remain unused. “So we could have the potential of doubling the supply of land for growing food,” he said.

“The challenge is to design urban farming as a lifestyle to integrate into our daily life. And the first step for that, of course, is to be accessible.”

To incorporate urban farms into the blueprints for office buildings, Rooftop Republic closely collaborates with architects, developers and property managers.

Major companies are signing up.

New skills

Apart from Bank of America garden, Singaporean banking giant DBS has also partnered with Rooftop Republic to set up an academy that runs workshops for beginners as well as professional courses.

Urban farmers say the projects help build community spirit among those who cultivate the crops.

After retiring from the public service, Lai Yee-man, 60, said she turned to farming to connect with nature and her neighbours.

She learnt techniques from professionals to develop her farming plot in the New Territories region of Hong Kong – a rural area close to the border with mainland China.

But now she is passing on her knowledge to fellow residents working the Sky Garden, a 1 200 square-metre facility on top of a mall. There residents cultivate edible flowers and fruit trees and can attend classes like mindful gardening.

“People attach greater importance to their health now, they will buy organic food,” said Lai Yee-man. “Here, we teach them not to waste … and to cherish their food.”

The majority of what the mall farm grows goes to local food banks.

Tsui admits that few young Hong Kongers currently have an interest in learning how to grow food. But younger people are often concerned about the environment and climate change, so the opportunity is there to generate enthusiasm.

“If coding is the skill set to learn for the 21st century, growing your own food is a necessary new skill that we all need to learn to ensure a regenerative and green planet.”

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2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-08-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://pretorianews.pressreader.com/article/281706912728878

African News Agency