ENG-1968 — Page 111

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PRIMARY PRODUCTION

Marketing Organization operates under the Agricultural Products (Marketing) Ordinance 1952, which provides for the appointment of a Director of Marketing (the Director, Agriculture and Fisheries Department) who is made a corporation sole with power to acquire and dispose of property and use the assets of the organization for the development and encouragement of vegetable farming. It provides also for a Marketing Advisory Board composed of unofficials to assist the organization. The controls imposed by the ordinance, however, apply only to the New Territories and Kowloon area, for there is little vegetable cultivation on Hong Kong Island.

The organization has established depots in the main vegetable cultivation areas of the New Territories. From these depots, and from vegetable marketing co-operative societies, vegetables are collected-daily by hired commercial vehicles and taken to the central wholesale market in Kowloon where three sales are held every day. The sales are conducted by the organization.

The organization is a non-profit-making concern and obtains its revenue from a 10 per cent commission on sales in its Cheung Sha Wan wholesale vegetable market. Vegetables are sold in the market by the organization but with considerable practical assistance given by the vegetable marketing co-operative societies which now handle over 80 per cent of locally produced vegetables sold through the market. Thirty per cent of the commission is therefore refunded to the marketing co-operative societies in recognition of the market- ing responsibilities they assume in respect of their own produce. Sales are by negotiation rather than auction, since up to 30,000 separate lots a day may be sold to nearly 4,000 registered buyers, making sales by auction impracticable.

During the year 1,595,074 piculs (96,476 metric tons) of vegetables, valued at $48,395,531 were sold through the organization. This amounted to an overall average of 4,382 piculs of vegetables (265 metric tons) handled daily by the organization.

ANIMAL INDUSTRIES

Since there is insufficient land for extensive grazing, pigs and poultry are the principal animals reared in the Colony for food; cattle are used mainly for draught purposes. The pigs of Hong Kong are mostly crosses of local animals with exotic stock, and