Moving beyond organic farming: Hong Kong farms embrace the regenerative farming revolution

Chan Pat Fan manages the two acres of Cham Shan Farm in Fanling, growing produce including gourds, melons, leafy greens and dragon fruit. The farmer is on his second term of funding with ZFPA having implemented many regenerative farming techniques, including mulching, composting or introducing directly to the soil nutrient amendments—a liquid mix of organic ingredients, left to ferment and in the process, become more microbe and nutrient-rich.

The main project on the farm is an irrigation system Chan finished building in January this year, distributing homemade nutrient amendments down from tanks stationed uphill to all of his fields through an elaborate piping network. Chan says this project started about five years ago—before ZFPA even launched—when he was approached by Josephine Mak Chen, who got him experimenting with different nutrient amendment recipes. Mak is a soil health expert who founded Homeland Green—a local non-profit teaching and advocating for regenerative farming—and is currently an advisor to ZFPA. Chan was struggling to produce enough nutrient amendments to cover his fields and had to pause for a year until ZFPA provided the funds to complete his station and connect it to his piping system. The farmer even built tanks at the station to produce 1,000 litres of compost tea every day, which he also pipes across the farm to help increase microbe diversity in the soil.

Chan also creates his own mulch—organic material spread as a protective layer on top of the soil and around growing crops to prevent weeds and improve water absorption. Nick Leung, ZFPA’s content and communications strategist who helped to translate, says that while many farmers mix their mulch with mushroom substrate, Chan obtains the same results by mixing his mulch with other materials such as lucky bamboo discarded after Chinese New Year and goat manure, leaving it to decompose and ferment for a year.

Chan says his biggest challenge is the changing weather. In the past, the farmer could reliably depend on cold winters to eliminate pests but now winters are getting warmer and summer rains are heavier and more unpredictable. This rain isn’t necessarily a bad thing, he says, recalling how it helped a certain cabbage grow better by drowning bugs. What Chan worries about more are events such as the Black Rainstorm last September—no farming practice can save crops from these, he admits.

Yet, the farmer has confidence in the steps he is taking to improve soil health and is keen to keep experimenting under ZFPA’s guidance. Aside from extreme weather events, Chan believes healthy soil can effortlessly fend off pests. Leung explains that measuring the sweetness content of crop leaves gives insight into the crop’s ability to resist pest bites and results at Cham Shan Farm have been promising.

Located in the midst of a rural residential area in Kam Tin, Sangwoodgoon is a farm of less than one acre. Farmer Chow Sze Chung and his three partners have been implementing organic permaculture farming—which treats the farm as an ecosystem, minimising and recycling waste in a closed loop—for 12 years. The jump to regenerative farming seemed natural and since being funded by ZFPA, the farm has seen much success in applying compost and mulch to their crops.

“In Hong Kong, about 80 per cent of the [yearly] rain falls within four months—this is a recipe for soil erosion,” says Chow. “If we can protect the surface of the soil as much as we can, the microbes and nutrients will stay inside the soil longer and be absorbed into crops better.” The farmer employs several techniques to do this such as mixing mushroom substrate into mulch, which he says helps the soil retain its structure, even after a heavy rainfall. Leung explains that soil from non-regenerative farms typically contains more bacteria than fungi, if any—which favours the growth of weeds and pests—whereas regenerative farming techniques advocate for an equal amount of fungi and bacteria, sometimes with more fungi—creating less favourable conditions for pests while allowing the fungi to convert more waste into nutrients.

Chow also experiments with companion planting or finding the right pair of crops to plant together. “We plant another crop to outcompete any weed that may grow around one crop,” he says. Pointing to several rows of Swiss chards, he explains how he planted them in autumn before planting green beans between the rows in the spring. Once the beans grew and developed vines, Chow installed wooden sticks and guided the vines to climb up along the structure, out of the cover of chard leaves. He found that the Swiss chards grow faster and healthier when paired than by themselves. Finding successful companion planting pairs not only increases farming productivity, it can also save time from weeding, which Chow describes as his biggest burden.

In terms of nutrient amendments, Chow has also received advice from Mak on how to optimise his recipes. Before getting involved with ZFPA, the farm already used soybean residues and compost to add nutrients to the soil but the effectiveness of this method was never measured. Having learnt more controlled ways to optimise their processes, the team hopes to alter and improve Sangwoodgoon’s soil health, experimenting with recipes based on Mak’s advice. “Of course all this takes time for the microbes to produce the nutrients but we are happy to wait,” he says.

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An established name in Hong Kong’s organic farming scene, AuLaw Organic Farm started in 2010 by farmer Wong Li Qin and her sister. Wong, also known as “Big Sister”, now manages the 3.3 acres land with her team, growing all sorts of produce from corn and bitter melons to longans and mangos. The extra space allows her to experiment with a variety of nutrient amendment recipes, including ingredients such as peanut mill, organic chicken manure and coffee.

Having joined ZFPA’s programme last October, Wong already noticed changes from implementing regenerative farming techniques such as mulching, composting and nutrient amendments. Though AuLaw had long used organic farming methods before, the farmer explained how she still struggled with pests eating the leaves. Yellow lines and a thinner profile on maize leaves, for instance, meant the crop lacked nutrients and was vulnerable to pest attack. Since implementing nutrient amendments and compost to the maize section, the leaves are visibly more green, sturdy and free of yellow lines and pests.

Walking to another field where gourds and different types of melons are planted, Wong also notes the effectiveness of mushroom substrate mulch at suppressing weeds around main crops, thus reducing efforts needed to remove them. Though some weeds have persisted through the mulch, the farmer says they don’t seem to have affected the growth of the main crop and would die out in time. After the heavy rains in early May this year, she also saw how well the mulch kept the crop in place despite the downpour. The extra nutrients seeping into the soil from the mulch helped to strengthen the vines allowing them to hold through tough weather.

Wong says her recent farming challenges relate to the unpredictable weather and the slow economic situation with selling her produce. Though she tries to plan for the year ahead, the farmer also finds herself constantly on the watch having to quickly adapt to sudden heavy downpours by digging ditches to prevent flooding around her fields or switching to planting a different crop that would grow better depending on the weather conditions. Her strategy to face the market situation is to rely on the quality of her produce. Wong is confident, based on the positive feedback she keeps receiving from her customers, that this difference is what will keep AuLaw afloat.

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