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Primary Production
RAPID industrialisation has brought increasing prosperity to Hong Kong's four million inhabitants but, with few natural resources, manufacturing industries depend almost entirely on imported raw materials. As a result, only a small proportion of the working population is involved in primary production. The 1971 census showed that farmers and their dependants comprise only 2.48 per cent of the Hong Kong population, while fisherfolk make up another 1.53 per cent of the total. Despite these relatively low percentages, the farmers of the New Territories produce 45 per cent of the vegetables consumed locally, 67.5 per cent of the total requirement of live chicken and 14.3 per cent of all the pigs slaughtered; furthermore, Hong Kong fisher- men catch 92 per cent of all the marine fish eaten locally. The number employed in min- ing or quarrying was 5,265, or 0.3 per cent of the labour force. Of the 403.8 square miles that make up Hong Kong's total land area, only 12.4 per cent is taken up with farming.
The sudden increase in Hong Kong's population during the 1950s, due to massive immigration from China, gave considerable stimulus to agricultural production as many of the new arrivals were farmers. There was of course also a great demand for food, and these changes resulted in a rapid growth of small, intensively cultivated vegetable and livestock farms. Traditional rice cultivation was less profitable, and those farmers who retained rice fields tended to diversify production by planting vegetables after the harvesting of the second rice crop. The number employed in farming and fishing reached its peak during the mid-1960s, but the attraction of nearby industrial satellite towns, offering higher wages, has led to a reduction in the number of these workers over the past five years. Although last year's census showed 62,975 people as employed in farming and fishing--almost 10,000 less than in 1966-nevertheless modernisation and greater intensification of operations have resulted in 108 and 96 per cent increases respectively in Hong Kong's agricultural and fisheries production in real value during that same five-year period. However, the number of workers in mining and quarrying increased from 4,200 in 1966 to just over 5,200 in 1971.
Administration and Services
The Agriculture and Fisheries Department concerns itself with optimum land utilisation and provides technical, extension and advisory services to farmers. It also deals with the economic, social and technological development of Hong Kong fisheries, especially those aspects which directly involve fishermen, and the adminis- trative organisation of co-operative societies of all types. The conservation of water and soil through afforestation of bare, eroded hillsides and catchment areas, is also an important aspect of the department's work. Afforestation is principally undertaken