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PRIMARY PRODUCTION
and farming equipment, all illustrating a common theme-'greater productivity in agriculture through optimum land use'. Several commercial organizations and government departments serving the rural community participated in the show, which provided an opportunity to bring together the farmer and the townsman, the producer and consumer.
In the rural education programme this year, some 642 farmers attended discussion groups led by professional and technical officers from the Agriculture and Fisheries Department. A restricted pro- gramme of formal training was also carried out in which more than 195 farmers and farmers' sons and daughters received vocational training in a wide variety of subjects. Farmers also visited government experimental stations and farming projects.
Within the last decade there has been a marked change in the farming pattern in Hong Kong. Paddy cultivation was formerly the most important aspect of agriculture in the New Territories. but there is now a steady increase in market gardening, and pig and poultry production. Most of this has been at the expense of rice growing land but there is also some development of marginal land. In addition 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 during the winter season.
The area of land under permanent vegetable cultivation has increased from 2,250 acres in 1954 to 8,100 acres in 1965. Six to eight crops of vegetables are harvested annually from intensively cultivated land. The main crops! are white cabbage, flowering cab- bage, turnip, leaf mustard, Chinese kale, Chinese lettuce, tomato, water spinach, string bean, watercress, cucumber and Chinese gourd. Other vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, and carrots are produced in great quantity during the cooler months and quality is excellent. This intensive production of vegetables takes place on both fertile and comparatively infertile land and is made possible by heavy dressings of manure. The traditional use of nightsoil is being replaced or supplemented by pig and poultry manure, peanut cake, duck feathers, bone meal and compost. The use of artificial fertilizers is increasing, usually in addition to organic manures. The widespread use of insecticides is an important feature of farming, as is the increasing use of selected crop varieties.