HK URBAN ROOFTOP FARMING
| Survey Information
In Hong Kong, less than 1.0% of the population has access to a private garden and there are only very limited opportunities for grow produce community gardens and weekend farms. Since 2009, some 60 rooftop farms have been established in many urban districts across Hong Kong, without any technical assistance or policy support. They have been set up either: by a specific interest group e.g. a residential, corporate or educational community where participants are drawn from within the building or campus (restricted-access farms); by a community enterprise organisations, which rent roof space to members of the public (open-to-pubic); or by a private organisation (private). Although the farms are distributed across the city, there are notable concentrations within districts such as Kwun Tong, Shatin, Tsuen Wan and Central. We estimate that there are more than 1400 people actively engaged in rooftop farming, and some 15,000 sq.m of roof space is currently being farmed. In our on-going survey of 48 farms in Hong Kong (excludes those that are private or have been in operation for less than a year) (12.5%) were located on residential buildings (built between 1983-00), 11 (22.9%) on institutional buildings (1983-13), 18 (37.5%) on industrial Buildings (1970-03), and 13 (27.15%) being on commercial buildings (1978-13). 19 are ‘open’ to the public farms (ave. 42 farmers per farm, total farm area 7,315 m2) while 29 are ‘restricted’ to a specific group (ave. 22 farmers, total farm area 5,270 m2).
Details of the farms can be found via the following links in the website: |