ENG-2006 — Page 233

Food Safety, Environmental Hygiene, Agriculture and Fisheries 189

Municipal Services Building in Mong Kok to educate the public on the importance of food safety and environmental hygiene.

The department also organises outreach educational programmes, consisting of talks, exhibitions and other activities. During the year, 2 801 health talks were given to the general public and various target groups, including food handlers, school children, foreign domestic helpers, the elderly and new arrivals to Hong Kong. A vehicle was used as a mobile education centre to help publicise the importance of good hygiene.

To encourage community involvement in keeping Hong Kong clean, the department also allocated $1.8 million to 18 District Councils to organise publicity campaigns.

Primary Production

The agriculture and fisheries industries are relatively small industries in Hong Kong. The Government does not give direct subsidies to them or attempt to protect them from open market forces. Instead, the AFCD focuses on helping them to improve the quality of their output and to enhance their productivity and competitiveness.

During the year, the combined output of the two industries was worth $2.9 billion. The output accounted for 4 per cent of vegetables, 37 per cent of cut flowers, 23 per cent of live pigs, 56 per cent of live poultry, 5 per cent of freshwater fish and 21 per cent of seafood sold locally. Approximately 18 000 people were employed directly in the industries in 2006. The overall output of the local agriculture and fisheries industries has remained relatively stable over the past few years.

Agriculture Industry

Hong Kong's agricultural industry focuses mainly on producing quality fresh food crops through intensive land use. Farming is done largely in the New Territories but only two per cent of the land there is being used for growing crops which comprises mainly vegetables and cut flowers, whose combined output was valued at about $258 million in 2006. Pigs and poultry are the principal animals reared for food and the value of locally reared pigs was about $585 million, while that of poultry, including chickens and pigeons, was worth $340 million.

The local agricultural industry has to adapt to fast-changing market trends to achieve sustainable development, constrained by the limited supply of farm land and labour, competition from imports, the cost of maintaining high environmental standards and calls for improved farm hygiene and safe produce. The AFCD encourages crop farmers to tap niche markets and to sharpen their competitiveness by cultivating safe, good quality vegetables. The department works with local organic farming organisations and the Vegetable Marketing Organisation to promote organic farming and to develop a market for organic vegetables. The department provides an organic farming support service to some 75 farms which are located on 34 hectares (ha) of land. The AFCD also promotes the use of greenhouse technology for intensive