Permaculture in One of the Most Densely Populated Cities in the World

Why Hong Kong Could Prove Pivotal for the Future of Sustainability

Hong Kong skyline
Photo by Felipe Diez

Seeing permaculture practiced in Hong Kong is extremely exciting because of what Hong Kong’s location, culture, and history mean for getting permaculture out to the world. The city had, until recently, the busiest port in the world (since superseded by Shanghai). It is a great travel hub in Asia for not only businessmen but also thousands of other travelers passing through each day. Those who stay can get a taste of the tremendous crowds in Hong Kong’s metropolitan areas, where some of the highest population densities in the world make for an experience that is both exhilarating and exhausting. Taking a short ferry ride to outlying islands or heading into the new territories, on the other hand, yields lush greenery that feels a world apart from the densely built environs of the city, for not only is Hong Kong a meeting point for the East and the West, it is also the concrete world where man interfaces with the natural world. We’ve all heard the cliché about the juxtaposition of east and west, old and new. However, Hong Kong does it in a way that’s convincing, where one does not have to win out over the other, and where both seem comfortable coexisting.

Bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong
Photo by Andrew Turner

The people of Hong Kong are known for being highly adaptable and pragmatic, and it’s easy to think that the practicality of permaculture could catch on in a big way here. While deeply entrenched in the modern world of gadgets and hi-tech everything, the people of Hong Kong still live and breathe many of their traditions with equal ease. There is perhaps no better example of this than the scaffolding used to construct the city’s astoundingly tall skyscrapers- all have been built using not steel, but bamboo. They simply haven’t found a better material than bamboo for this purpose in Hong Kong, and so they continue to use something that many would consider “third-world”. It’s this combination of people and place with the new and the old that makes Hong Kong a unique place for permaculture, above and beyond the normal fascinating specific realities normally found in other sites around the world.

The city has the potential to be a major player in implementing and disseminating permaculture, because if it can be done here, the world will see it and the world will follow. Because of how densely packed the buildings and people are, news and ideas spread quickly and permaculture stands to emerge on a large scale, with "here" potentially including all of mainland China as well. If Hong Kong, a densely populated urban environment, can make real, significant changes in a move towards sustainability, the impact can radiate far beyond its borders and significantly speed the transition to a world where permaculture is the norm.

Hong Kong PDC 2010

This was the first “full-scale” PDC taught in Hong Kong. Our PDC, taught by Geoff Lawton, consisted of almost 50 students. Everyone was either Chinese or lived in Hong Kong, with the exception of yours truly who went to Hong Kong from Okinawa to attend the course (similar climate and relatively close to HK). Of these Chinese citizens and residents, the majority were locals, 8 were from mainland China, and 2 were British expats living in Hong Kong. The course indicates the interest in permaculture that is spreading through this city — a city with a reputation for caring only about money. Naysayers had commented that Hong Kong residents would never take two consecutive weeks out of their busy schedules to take part in a 72-hour PDC, and yet the impossible did indeed happen and all participants present on the first day went on to complete the course and receive their certificates. This reflects the fact that there is a growing awareness about the problems with food production, pollution, etc. that we all face.
This PDC was sponsored by the Kadoorie Institute, who offered scholarships to primary producers (farmers) in China in the hope of spreading permaculture practices here.

Agriculture & Permaculture in Hong Kong

There are organic farms in Hong Kong which account for a small percentage of produce, and no large-scale industrial farming operations. In contrast to countries like the US and Australia where many people live in homes with yards that can be used to grow food, most Hong Kong residents live in high rise apartment buildings with no yards. The only personal space they have to grow food is on their balconies, or perhaps indoors. As a result, permaculture here will take a very different form from that practiced in these other places.

Photo by Gurmit Singh

The apartment building complexes in Hong Kong are referred to as estates, with buildings having as many as 60+ floors. Not only are the buildings crammed full of individual apartments, but many apartments are crammed full of people. Because of this, one of the most logical ways for food production to occur in this, or any urban environment, is through the structure of community gardens.

O-Farm Community Gardens

City gardeners working on their garden plots

Happily, such gardens already do exist, and our class was fortunate to visit "O-Farm", for a tour and celebration of their 10th year in existence (see this previous post from Geoff Lawton for more info on the gardens). This community garden, on the outskirts of the city, provides a place for city dwellers to get out of the city in their spare time while tending to their rented garden beds. Tools, seeds, compost/fertilizer, and expertise are theirs to utilize in exchange for a modest membership fee. The owner, "Monkey", came across a copy of "Permaculture One" early on when he established the farm and found it very helpful in what he was trying to do. He was one of the main forces behind getting Geoff to Hong Kong to teach the course.

At O-Farm, a conspicuously pale city kid and his beer-bellied dad worked up a sweat tending to their vegetable crop while all around the garden people were busy getting their gardens in order after an extremely rare frost had killed the crops that had been planted when no one could have predicted the low temperatures. Still, even though the papaya leaves had died, the huge papayas still looked delicious and healthy. It was obvious that this was a model that worked, and that would allow people to provide for a portion of their food while engaged in constructive and pleasurable activity. The exchange of money for experience and farm tools is ideal for city folk who may have some of the former, but almost certainly lack the latter. In this way the learning curve to getting a yield is greatly shortened. The problem of lack of land as well as the need to get into natural surroundings is also taken care of.

Castello Organic Farm- gardening at the foot of a skyscraper

This is about as urban as it gets (photos taken from Castello Farm presentation
given during tour of O-Farm)

But it’s not necessary to flee the city to have a community garden, as a project in one of the large estates demonstrates. Castello Organic Farm was established thanks to the initiative of a few residents who are by now well acquainted with permaculture. The high-rise estate buildings take up a minimal amount of land while maximizing vertical capacity, but there are usually small open areas at ground level. Having made the appropriate inquiries and proposals, permission was granted to establish some garden beds in a small area of lawn. Garden beds were established, and Residents were able to subscribe to grow their own food in a plan similar to the one used at O Farms.

Before and after installation of garden beds

As one would imagine, an urban environment presents challenges in terms of biomass, waste processing, composting, etc., and urban-specific solutions had to be implemented for all of these. Residents were involved in the planning and construction of structures such as a tool shed, trellises, wash basins, compost bins, etc. to encourage community building and ownership of the structures. What couldn’t be produced on site, like biomass, was of necessity brought in. This also included bringing in outside expertise when it was called for, but this was done to educate residents with the goal of increasing the knowledge within the community. Besides growing food, programs on subjects such as creating herbal preparations and food, composting, etc. were also included, which also served to increase knowledge within the community while also providing more venues to build community.

The Castello Organic Farm program has been a resounding success for all involved, including the estate owners who received accolades for something they’d only approved! The program will continue to change and evolve to reach more residents and better serve the needs of participants. One can only imagine the benefits, not least of which would be the guaranteed innovations in urban gardening, if this model were to spread to all the other estates in Hong Kong.

Why is Hong Kong important?

First of all, travelers from all parts of the world would ideally be able to see how permaculture has been able to turn what could have been a nightmarish situation with little or no food security into a sustainable urban environment. The large number of travelers from all over the world transiting or visiting Hong Kong means potentially massive exposure and inspiration, which would then be brought to all corners of the world. People would then associate permaculture not with only poor places, but with one of the business centers of the world — complete with the gleaming buildings and other trappings of "success" to show it. Hong Kong would thus serve as not just a travel and business hub, but a permaculture hub as well.

Secondly, but perhaps more importantly, Hong Kong would serve as a model for the rest of China. With 1.3 billion plus people and rising, the impact that permaculture could have in China cannot be underestimated. If nothing else, permaculture could be a way for modern Chinese citizens to become reacquainted with their illustrious farming past, as documented in "Farmers of Forty Centuries". Somewhere along the way, China lost its sustainable farming traditions and it’s more than a little ironic that the restoration of these practices can perhaps be brought back, or at least encouraged, by people and resources from the Western world.

Mainland China is isolated from the rest of the world in many ways — the media is highly censored and "the great firewall of China" blocks Chinese citizens from accessing a lot of the information we take for granted. I talked to our mainland classmates with great interest, and was surprised that at least one was very aware issues like the insanity of genetically modified food and the destructiveness of industrial agriculture. They are every bit as concerned about the food they eat as those of us in the "first world". I have every hope that our classmates go home to spread permaculture further in a country that desperately needs it. Together, Hong Kong and China can become a permaculture force to be reckoned with, one that will play a large role in a sustainable world.

Some specifics on Hong Kong’s climate

The first day of class, Geoff remarked that from the little he’d seen so far, he would describe Hong Kong as being a "multicultural pluralism". He pointed to the Eucalypts outside our classroom window (an Australian tree) growing alongside plants indigenous to the area or introduced from other regions. Climatically, Hong Kong is sub-tropical and has hot humid summer with much rain. Winters are cool with little rain. The climate makes for a year-round growing season, and the region is indeed favorable for growing a large assortment of crops from all climatic zones. This is exactly what people did before the advent of industrial agriculture, and F.H. King’s excellent book "Farmers of Forty Centuries" contains a chapter on the state of agriculture as it was practiced at the start of the 20th century. You can read the book at the soilandhealth.org library if you’re short on funds, but it’s better to just buy a copy so you can see the pictures and read an actual book.

It’s interesting to compare Hong Kong and Okinawa — as mentioned, the two places share similar climates, and many of the same plants can be found in both places. However, the same plant in Hong Kong will generally grow much larger and be more robust and healthy looking.