The Rural Voice, 1979-02, Page 350
Hong Kong farmers
trying to stay on the land
The Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Assoc. is
trying to help Hong Kong farmers stay on
the land.
In the past seven years, almost
one-quarter of the British colony's farmers,
pressured by typhoons, irregular rainfall,
under capitalization and disease, have left
the land for higher paying city jobs.
Now the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid
Association, which employs about 100
agronomists, administrators and farm
workers on its 356 -acre New Territories
farm, is trying to develop stronger and
higher -yield seed and breeding livestock to
give to farmers in Hong Kong's outback.
The non-profit agency, formed in 1951
by two wealthy brothers, Lawrence and
Horace Kadoorie, has lent $21.4
million to farmers, has built 200 miles of
oad, 317 dams, 253 bridges, 14, 687
pigsties and 41 reservoirs.
The agency has also given away over 1.2
Farming Around the World
million chickens, 56,355 pigs, 100,345
ducks and 95,850 fruit trees.
The brothers founded their association
originally to help ease the colony's burden
of refugees fleeing from China's Com-
munist Revolution.
The association's farm is in the hills of
the Chinese mainland portion of Hong
Kong and uses terraces that maximize
arable land space. The administrative
buildings, hot houses and animal sheds,
are in a valley.
Horace Kadoorie still personally reviews
every application for assistance received by
the association.
Then one of the association's three
investigators spends some time deter-
mining the extent of farmers' problems
and their best solutions.
Horace Kadoorie is then presented with
about 52 names a month that investigators
feel qualify for assistance.
THE BASE
FACTORY
OUTLET
" The Store That Saves You More"
• MEN'S • BOYS' • LADIES'
• GIRLS' • BABY WEAR • YARD
GOODS • SEWING MACHINES
• POUND GOODS
Monday - Saturday
10 AM - 9 PM
Sunday: Holidays
12 noon - 6 PM
Highway 4 South of Clinton at
Vanastra
A typical case is that of a Chinese
refugee woman whose husband was forced
to leave his job to look after her.
Three years ago the association helped
the woman start a chicken farm. Now the
group has given the woman two gilts and
two porkers to start a pig farm.
A second project of the association is
training Gurkhas, the tough Nepalise hill
tribesmen, who make up half the British
troops in Hong Kong. The Gurkhas are
recruited when very young, and spend
from 15 to 30 years of their lives in the
army, retiring with few marketable skills.
A Gurkha training unit was set up at the
Kadoorie farm in 1968 and has since
trained more than 3,000 Gurkhas in
modern agricultural methods they can put
in practice when they return to Nepal.
Peace River: Farming's
last frontier
What Mount Everest was to mount-
aineers and the moon was to astronauts,
the Peace River Region of northwestern
Handicraft &
Flower
Shoppe
Specializing in Dried & Silk
Flower Arrangements
MACRAME SUPPLIES
or buy ready made hangers
All sorts of
UNIQUE CRAFTS
& GIFTS
FRESH FLOWERS
available for your sped*/ occasions
306 Josephine St.
Wingham, Ont
Phone 357-2023
COME IN AND BROWSE
THE RURAL VOICE/FEBRUARY 1979 PG. 35