PRODUCTION
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shown little inclination towards systematic animal-rearing. This is partly due to lack of capital, shortage of locally- obtainable feed, and lack of experience in animal husbandry; but the fact that many villages have hitherto depended partly on remittances from abroad is another important factor which should not be overlooked, and which is discussed in the New Territories section of the chapter on Occupations, Wages and Labour Organization. Loans from Government sources, and loans and grants from the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association, are beginning to bring a significant change here. Local pork production, which at present stands at about 12% of requirement, is increasing, primarily due to this assistance, and to work done by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in improving husbandry methods, controlling disease, providing boar centres, and organizing extension work amongst small farmers. Pork, however, is a most im- portant item in Hong Kong's daily diet, and for it the Colony depends on the import from China of live pigs, over 500,000 of which are brought in annually.
For eggs the Colony again depends a good deal on imports from China, but there are several large egg 'farms in the Colony, with imported birds, mostly White Leghorns. A steady demand for poultry meat is being increasingly met from local resources. There is also an overseas demand for dried and smoked ducks, and for preserved eggs. This has led to an extension of duck-raising in marshy areas.
The meat consumed in the Colony is mainly imported on the hoof and during the year there has been an increase in the numbers of pigs, cattle and buffaloes passing through the slaughterhouses. Among inedible livestock products, hides, pig bristles, and bone meal form the largest items, mainly imported from South-East Asia for re-export to Europe and the Middle East.
Foot-and-mouth disease, which first appeared in 1954, has practically died out in the farming areas, although many cases of the disease are discovered amongst freshly imported slaughter stock in the quarantine yards. Government measures are taken to keep the Colony free of rinderpest by annual inoculation of all bovine stock. Newcastle disease of poultry, although still taking a heavy toll, is now kept under control by