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PRIMARY PRODUCTION

The Organization may one day be run by the fishermen themselves as a co-operative enterprise, but lack of education is a factor that only time can solve. Wherever possible the Fisheries Division makes full use of the Organization's close relationship with the fishing communities. The value of this relationship was demon- strated after typhoon Mary, which passed through the Colony during the early hours of the morning of 9th June and caused grievous damage to the fishing community. Many thousands of fishermen and boat-people turned to the Organization for assist- ance: apart from the provision of immediate relief within 14 days, 130 rehabilitation grants totalling $193,943 were made through the Organization from the Community Typhoon Relief Fund, which was set up by public subscription immediately after the typhoon. In this same period over $170,000 were loaned to fishermen from the Organization's loan fund.

The success of the Organization has attracted world wide interest and a month seldom passes without the arrival of visitors and students from other lands to study the operations of the Organiza- tion with the idea of setting up similar schemes in their own countries.

Vegetable Marketing Organization. The advantages of the Fish Marketing Scheme were obvious almost immediately, and a similar scheme was introduced in 1946 for the Colony's second most important group of primary producers, the vegetable farmers. From this developed the Vegetable Marketing Organization. The Organization now operates under the Agricultural Products (Marketing) Ordinance, 1952, which provides for the appointment of a Director of Marketing (the Commissioner for Co-operative Development and Fisheries) who is made a corporation sole with power to acquire and dispose of property and to use the assets of the Organization for the development and encouragement of vegetable farming. It provides also for a Marketing Advisory Board; the Director as Chairman and four other persons, nomi- nated by the Governor, who have experience and understanding of the difficulties and needs of farmers. The controls imposed by the Ordinance, however, apply only to the New Territories and Kowloon area, for there is little vegetable cultivation on the Island.

The Organization has established depots in the main vegetable cultivation areas of the New Territories. From these depots, the

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