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and poultry. The department provides infrastructural and financial support through low-interest loans to farmers to enhance agricultural productivity and promote safe and environmentally friendly production methods.
The department has implemented an Agricultural Land Rehabilitation Scheme since 1988 to encourage utilisation of otherwise fallow agricultural land for productive farming. The scheme effects improvements in irrigation, drainage and farm road access. Assistance including tenure arrangements, soil improvement and marketing facilities is also available to interested farmers.
To better protect the environment and consumers against pesticide residues, the department implements the Accredited Farm Scheme together with the Vegetable Marketing Organisation, a self-financing quasi-government body. Vegetable farms which adopt good agricultural practices and use pesticides in accordance with a properly designed pest-control programme are granted accreditation. They are subject to regular inspection and their produce is closely monitored for pesticide residues in the wholesale market by the organisation. Produce is distributed from such accredited farms to designated retail outlets in specially marked vegetable baskets. Since 1995, the scheme has been extended to farms in the mainland supplying vegetables to Hong Kong.
Livestock farmers are required to install and operate waste treatment systems to prevent pollution under the Livestock Keeping Licensing Scheme. At the end of 1997, the department had issued 353 licences and a further 397 licence applications were being processed. The department has been promoting the pig-on-litter method which uses sawdust as bedding material on which pigs are raised. The used sawdust is recycled as soil conditioner or organic fertiliser for crop cultivation.
Poultry farming received a setback in the second quarter of 1997 when three Hong Kong chicken farms were found to be infected with avian influenza. In August, the disease affecting the farms was typed as H5N1 avian influenza. At about the same time, the H5N1 virus was isolated from a young boy who had died in May 1997. Other human cases of avian influenza were subsequently confirmed. In December, H5 avian influenza was detected in another local chicken farm and in wholesale and retail poultry markets in Hong Kong. In view of the confirmed presence of the H5N1 avian influenza virus among poultry in Hong Kong and evidence that the disease can be contracted by people, it was decided in December that all chickens in local farms and all poultry at government wholesale markets and retail outlets - some 1.5 million birds in all should be slaughtered to protect public health. The slaughtering operation started on December 29 and was largely completed at the end of the year.
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The Plant Varieties Protection Ordinance was brought into effect in 1997 to fulfil the obligations of the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights under the World Trade Organisation to protect the rights of plant breeders. Varieties of different types of plants, including fruit crops, vegetables and ornamentals as well as edible fungi and algae, are all eligible for protection. It is envisaged that more new varieties of crops with improved yields and qualities will be introduced to farmers.
Besides technical support, the department administers three loan funds which provide low-interest loans to the agricultural sector. They are the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Loan Fund, the J. E. Joseph Trust Fund and the Vegetable
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