PRIMARY PRODUCTION
PRINCIPAL CROPS
71
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 has been 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 30 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 market gardening has increased from 2,250 acres in 1954 to 8,660 acres in 1967. Six to eight crops of vegetables are harvested annually from intensively cultivated land. The main crops are white cabbage, flowering cabbage, 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 the quality is excellent. This intensive production on both fertile and compar- atively infertile land 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.
Sweet potatoes are grown both for human consumption (the tubers), and for pigfeed (the vines). Some 2,000 acres of drier lands are double-cropped, chiefly for tubers, and a catch crop of sweet potatoes is also grown on over 1,000 acres following the second paddy harvest. A small area of land is under other field crops, such as peanut, millet, soy bean and sugar-cane, which are culti- vated mainly for local consumption. Fruit production, which in- cludes lychees, lung ngan, wong pei, lemon, orange, tangerine, Japanese apricot, guava, papaya, and pineapple, covers about 1,600 acres. There is a small but useful export trade in some fruit and field crops to overseas Chinese.