With their heads in the clouds and their hands in the soil, a group of office workers is busy harvesting the fruits of their labor on the roof of a Hong Kong skyscraper.
Invisible to those below, a sprawling garden of radishes, carrots, and rhubarb is flourishing at the top of the 150-meter tall Bank of America tower, a stark and colorful contrast to the monotone shades of concrete, steel, and a glass of the city’s financial district.
The farm is among more than 60 that have sprouted across the space-starved city since 2015 — on decommissioned helipads, shopping mall rooftops, and public terraces — thanks to initiatives like the Rooftop Republic, a local social enterprise that promotes urban farming.
Cofounder Andrew Tsui sees the rooftop farms as a way for people to reconnect with how sustainable food can be produced in what he calls the current “instant-noodle city lifestyle” that sees so much waste.
“What we are looking at is really how to identify underutilized spaces among the city and mobilize the citizens, the people, to learn about food,” the 43-year-old said during a blustery site inspection of the skyscraper’s garden. Tsui believes Hong Kongers need to re-establish a relationship with what they eat that has been broken “since we started outsourcing our food and relying so much on industrialized production.”
According to government statistics, Hong Kong throws out some 3,500 tonnes of food waste a day — the equivalent weight of 250 double-decker buses. Less than a quarter is recycled.
