ENG-1988 — Page 133

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Primary Production

HONG KONG'S farmers, working on a very small agricultural base, produce mainly high-value foods to cater to the local consumers' preference for fresh, rather than frozen or chilled, foods.

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Only about nine per cent of the total land area is suitable for crop farming, and about two per cent of the work force is engaged in primary production - agriculture and fisheries. Each day, the people consume about 1 000 tonnes of rice, 1 140 tonnes of vegetables, 10 050 pigs, 500 head of cattle, 330 tonnes of poultry, 450 tonnes of fish and 1 200 tonnes of fruit. Much of this is imported, but Hong Kong farmers help to satisfy some of the demand.

In terms of quantity, local farmers produce about 34 per cent of fresh vegetables, 38 per cent of live poultry, 18 per cent of live pigs, and 12 per cent of freshwater fish. The fishing fleet of some 4 900 vessels supplies about 83 per cent of all live and fresh marine fish eaten.

The locally-produced foods are generally of a higher quality than the same type of imported foods and thus fetch higher prices in the markets.

Based on these figures, Hong Kong people, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, are among the world's highest consumers of protein.

Foodstuffs account for about 12 per cent of Hong Kong's imports from China. Local production, which complements rather than competes with imports, is aimed at maintain- ing some degree of self-sufficiency with respect to highly-perishable foodstuffs.

Agriculture and Fisheries Department

The Agriculture and Fisheries Department encourages the productive use of agricultural land in the rural areas. Among the major on-going programmes to this end are the agricultural land rehabilitation scheme and projects for irrigation maintenance and development. Furthermore, new concepts, techniques and material input to the farming and fishing industries are evaluated and actively promoted. Controls are exercised to prevent the introduction and spread of plant and livestock pests and diseases.

Investigatory programmes of the department cover crops, pest control, animal health and husbandry and fisheries. Experiments are conducted on government experimental stations to improve the quality and yield of vegetables, flowers and fruit.

The department advises farmers on disease prevention and control, and modern methods of animal production, supplies good quality seeds and breeding stocks of pigs and poultry, and provides an artificial insemination service for pigs.

Fisheries studies are conducted on marine resources, aquaculture and the environmental impact of development activities on fisheries. In marine resources, emphasis is placed on optimising production from the fisheries resources exploited by the local fishing fleet and investigating the development potential of under-exploited resources.