Community bonding

"Urban farms are a valuable contribution to the city," states Mathew Pryor, the University of Hong Kong's landscape architecture head. Pryor authored the book The Edible Roof and oversaw the HKU Rooftop Farm in Runme Shaw Building for seven years.

"My research after interviewing hundreds of participants indicated that rooftop farming is not about food - it is about happiness," Pryor explains. "That is a difficult thing to put into a guideline. People, particularly those in the government, don't know how to codify it." However, such projects are successful when the public are personally invested in them, he adds.

Enoch To believes that trying out farming is what helped her survive the most challenging months of the pandemic in Hong Kong. Between working from home and supervising her eight-year-old son Allan's Zoom lessons, To had managed to obtain one of the 20 allotments run by the Tung Chung residential complex in which she lives. For a HK$1,300 fee ($167), she can farm a 3 by 0.8 meter plot, six months at a time.