"Farming in the Post-Social Movement Era—Hong Kong's New Farmers Facing the Sunset" Preface

"Farming in the Post-Social Movement Era—Hong Kong's New Farmers Facing the Sunset" is my graduation project at National Taiwan University.

"Hongkong?"

"farmer?"

When I mentioned Hong Kong’s agriculture to my Taiwanese friends, many people were surprised: “Are there any farmers in Hong Kong?”

In Hong Kong, a financial city where the majority of the population is engaged in the service industry, farming is a niche activity, both in terms of data and imagination of the city. So why do young people, even those who have been active participants in social movements, become farmers? I found that to understand the life transition of new farmers, one must first understand the context of Hong Kong’s social movement; after all, most of them entered the industry after the anti-high-speed rail movement.

After 2000, Hong Kong experienced different social and political trends, including the land and anti-forced eviction movements. The anti-high-speed rail movement in 2008 inherited the reflection on urban space from the Star Star Conservation and Queen's Pier movements in the early years, and encouraged citizens to think about the value of land beyond real estate development. Inspired by the land movement, a group of people decided to join agriculture; in this place with a high degree of commercial division of labor, they realized the possibility of self-sowing and self-cooking.

I went to learn farming from Ah Zhou, learned how to use a lawnmower from Xiao Tian in "Pioneer Field", and also visited Haoying and Nicole in "Tian Shi".

Half a year later, I wrote down my observations in the hope of successfully understanding this group of farmers: what they were doing was in line with the values ​​they believed in in the past. They were not suddenly switching careers to go to the countryside, not to escape, but to continue and actively practice The idea of ​​longing.

This series of reports is an attempt to write the life story of new farmers in Hong Kong. Among the new farmers, some persisted from the beginning, some chose not to be farmers and stayed on the sales side, and some only joined after a few years. The "living halls", "fields" and "pioneer fields" in the report represent these three different types of new farmers or practitioners.

The "Living Museum" re-cultivated wasteland. After the anti-high-speed rail movement, Zhou Sizhong and his partners studied farming technology with determination and offered planting courses to ensure a source of income. At that time, Hong Kong experienced ten years of conservation movement trends after the handover of sovereignty in 1997. Politically, people still long for demands such as universal suffrage.

Hao Ying, the owner of "Tian Shi" who participated in the anti-real estate hegemony movement, experienced the difficulties farmers had in selling agricultural products. After the Umbrella Movement, he and his partner Nicole decided to run an intermediary food stall at their own expense to promote agricultural products; they and other umbrella queens established The group is thinking about how to spread the spirit of local life.

As for Xiaotian, a social worker who joined Pioneer Field by chance after nearly 20 years of social movement, he has experienced the difficulties of newcomers entering the industry and hopes to cooperate with more new farmers to improve the plight of the industry. He also hopes that his former social movement partners will When social movements subside, we have the opportunity to gather together and encourage each other.

Since each vegetable garden and vegetable stall has a representative character, these three reports will tell the story from them. However, many of the other people who have less space in the article have also made suggestions and contributions to vegetable gardens and vegetable stalls, and are irreplaceable work and life partners. What this group of people symbolizes is neither romantic rural life nor a simple political declaration, but a move closer to a more ideal world through hard work.

So what role did the government play when new farmers were struggling to farm? The Hong Kong government’s agricultural policy in recent years has been based on the “New Agricultural Policy” of 2016. But why is the agricultural industry still struggling to survive?

Taking a closer look at the policy, I found that the details include "implementing plans to promote agricultural resumption", "promoting agriculture-related leisure agriculture", "carrying out market promotion and building brands" and "strengthening talent training"; and several interviewees The business conditions of vegetable gardens and vegetable stalls correspond to these detailed rules.

Through these three groups of interviewees who invested in agriculture in 2009, 2014, and 2020 respectively, we can see their respective thoughts on agriculture and Hong Kong society under the changes in the social situation spanning more than ten years; we can also see Hong Kong’s agricultural policies The gap with farmers’ needs has never been bridged.

Text: Liang Jinghong

Editor/Instructor: Huang Shumei, Li Zhide

Oral examination committee members: Zheng Zhaoqi, Zhang Jieping

其他系列報導文章（連結見「關聯作品」）： - 致命的認真：在農耕中找回自主的香港菜園「生活館」 - 經營生活的香港菜檔：本地食材工作室「田嘢」 - 種田也種社區：香港菜園「先鋒田」與社工小田（2028年公開）