PRIMARY PRODUCTION
105
the Agriculture and Forestry Department which offers technical assistance and advice. Similar advice and assistance is also given to all welfare organizations concerned with the rural community.
In rural education emphasis is placed on lectures followed by informal discussion rather than on formal training courses. During the year some 500 farmers attended such discussion groups, led by professional and technical experts from the Agriculture and Forestry Department. A restricted programme of formal training was also carried out and more than 90 farmers and farmers' sons received vocational training in a wide variety of subjects. More than 200 progressive farmers were selected to attend organized farm visits to Government experimental stations and farming projects.
Within the last decade there has been a marked change in the farming pattern in Hong Kong. Formerly paddy cultivation was the most important aspect of agriculture in the New Territories. With the increased demand for protective foods such as vegetables, fruit, eggs and poultry meat, and with industrial expansion and immigrant farmers exerting pressure on the land, there has been a steady increase in market gardening, and pig and poultry produc- tion. It is Government's policy to encourage diversification in farm- ing practice and more than 35 per cent of the two-crop paddy land is now used for winter season catch crops. Most of this land formerly remained fallow. The use of artificial fertilizers continues to increase every year. A striking aspect of local farming is the widespread use of knapsack sprayers and modern insecticides. The steady expansion of primary production over the past three years is shown in Appendix V.
AGRICULTURE
The area of land under permanent vegetable cultivation has steadily increased from 2,254 acres in 1954 to 7,822 acres in 1963. This increase comes mainly from the transition of rice land to vegetable production and the development of marginal land. In addition some 1,200 acres of two-crop paddy land (that is, land which can be irrigated during the driest weather and has good access to markets) is also used for cultivating winter vegetables after the harvest of the second rice crop. Six to eight crops of