LA
5
埋菜凍
Primary Production
HONG KONG produces a considerable amount of its own fresh food requirements such as vegetables, poultry, eggs, pigs and fish, even though the proportion of the working popula- tion involved in fishing and farming is less than three per cent.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the territory is one of the world's highest consumers of protein per head of population, with every man, woman and child having an average daily protein intake of some 107 grams. Local primary producers help to satisfy some of this demand, raising about 66 per cent of the total live chicken requirements and about 18 per cent of the live pigs slaughtered. Enough eggs are produced to make Hong Kong self-sufficient in eggs if it wished, with some 315,100 local birds and 33,900 hybrid birds being kept in breeding flocks in 1980.
The territory's fishing fleet of some 5,400 vessels catches about 89 per cent of all fresh marine fish eaten and pond fish farmers produce about 16 per cent of the freshwater fish consumed.
In addition, farmers in the New Territories grow nearly 40 per cent of the vegetables consumed by Hong Kong residents. The agricultural industry remains buoyant even though a mere 9.4 per cent of Hong Kong's total land area is used for farming.
Agriculture and Fisheries Department
三
The Agriculture and Fisheries Department encourages optimum land usage throughout the rural areas. It provides technical, development and advisory services to the farming and fishing industries. In addition, it handles the administrative organisation and super- vision of societies of all types and supervises credit unions. The department manages large areas of open countryside and is responsible for soil and water conservation, woodland management and landscape repair, as well as fire-fighting and the development of recrea- tional services in country parks.
The Agriculture and Fisheries Department provides a development information service to the primary industries. Details of new projects put forward are carefully considered and those expected to prove both viable and in the interests of Hong Kong are encouraged. Consumer demand and local primary production, within the context of world food production and supply, are investigated to enable appropriate development planning. All available statistical data on production factors and food supplies, including imports, are collected and analysed to help formulate local production and marketing policies. The business efficiency of different sectors within the primary industries is studied to establish and update productivity standards, and to facilitate advice on their improvement. Forward projection studies of the market demand for foods are prepared and the projections are then related to local primary production capacity, both actual and potential.