K-Farm is a community farm in Kennedy Town (Hong Kong Island).
For the first time in Hong Kong three different farming technologies are combined
Including hydroponics, aquaponics, and organic farming
The farm covers an area of 2000㎡
We are primarily a non-profit organization
We’d invite residents in the neighborhood to farm
In fact, such community farms exist in every district
Citizens can rent a small plot of land
And enclose it
And cultivate the land for four months
To apply you have to wait in line for a long time
So we have such an open farm like K-Farm
In the hope that people can all come to farm
And the number of citizens we could serve also surges
The height of the greenhouse is 6 meters and is divided into two storeys
You can enjoy the sea view while planting and picking vegetables along the way
It also improves the efficiency of the space, allowing more vegetable growth in limited space
Hydroponic greenhouses are dodecagonal
Like a clock matching the direction of the sun
Plant seedlings grow in area where it’s dim
And when they are a bit bigger, they are moved to sunnier area
And when sunlight is not enough, we turn on the LED lights
So that they can mature according to the set timetable
Before entering the greenhouse, they go through a wind room
In order to blow away the insects
Because there are a lot of vegetables growing in here
If insects get in, they could eat all of them
In the greenhouse all water is recycled
This way we reduce 90% of water use
And we can adjust the formula of nutrients
Control the sweetness of vegetables, even give them a grass flavor
We produce 1 ton of vegetables every month
We’d donate them to nursing homes after harvesting
Or citizens who participated in farming could take them
If we live on Mars, we’d be making oxygen through hydroponics in greenhouses
So here you can experience
Life in the future
Aquaponics, we feed the fish organic food
The excrement of fish falls into the water and nourish vegetables by watering
We have an automatic irrigation system
Not long after the farm opened, we found fishes were missing
We thought there were people stealing fishes
But in the camera we saw the thieves turn out to be seagulls
Biodiversity is a wonderful thing
Nearby parks have been using pesticides for a long time
Butterflies and bees are repelled as a result
But we don’t use any pesticide
So insects are attracted here
And seagulls, birds, frogs
They become a little community
At first, people didn’t think much of the farm, they thought it would definitely fail
But in the process we managed to grow strawberries
And now we are trying to grow corns
We have been hit by strong winds and it was tough
So we move the seedlings into the greenhouse
And transplant them when they become stronger
And as such they grow up
Now it becomes a beautiful “maze”
Green building is actually an integral system
The three gazebos, in addition to enjoying the sea view
Is also a rain collecting system
Our office roof is fitted with solar panels
And they generate enough energy to power our office
The farm was originally an abandoned dock
We participated in a design competition organized by the Hong Kong government in 2019
We won and the government let us use the land rent free for three years
If we don’t get to renew the lease three years later
Different parts of the modular building
Are connected by screws
So it can be easily dismantled into pieces and transported to other places
The farm opened in 2021, coinciding with the third wave of the COVID19 outbreak
Many people in the neighborhood were trapped in their home and when they finished working
They’d come out for a walk, then our farm became a popular place
Citizens took our flower boxes for planting
We had a gardening competition for the best flower grower
The message K-Farm is trying to deliver is that
We want our citizen to understand “green life”
Local farming can provide what we need
And this is closely related to our goal
Of building a zero-carbon city