When Hong Kong’s suffocating summers drive millions into the sanctuary of air-conditioned buildings, farmers in the valleys of Lung Ah Pai in the Tai Po district have nowhere to hide.
Under the scorching sun, 26-year-old rice farmer Kwok Yau-wah is often knee-deep in water and mud doing back-breaking work.
“The hardest part of the year is ploughing the fields for the late crop in July,” Kwok said. “Doing the most gruelling manual labour under 30 to 40 degrees Celsius ... in high humidity is incredibly tough. You often have to rest 15 minutes every 30 to 60 minutes just to survive it.”
But the blistering heat is only half the battle.
“Last August, we had consecutive black rainstorms and typhoons right during our seedling cultivation period. It washed away a lot of the topsoil, the nutrients and the seedlings themselves,” Kwok noted.
Because the farm is in a valley, flooding is a perpetual threat.
“Once it floods, the waterways get distorted,” Kwok noted. “Around 2023, we had to do a major overhaul of the waterways, physically going into the mountain stream with shovels and stones to pave a clear channel.”
It is rare for a young Hongkonger to pick tough labour in the fields over the predictable comfort of office jobs.
“What makes farming interesting to me isn’t just the manual labour; it’s the design elements, the ecology and the human relationships,” Kwok explained.
Gifts from the land
For the last four years, Kwok has been working with a dedicated group of farmers to revive and document Hong Kong’s native rice varieties.
Established in 2015, this project is led by Gift from Land, a Hong Kong-based social project focused on agriculture, art, culture and education, with support from the Ng Jixing Cultural and Educational Foundation.
Karen Kwok Ka-yan, the initiative’s senior officer, noted that the group’s ultimate goal was not mass production.
“What surprised us most was that Hong Kong actually had almost no records of its own rice,” she said, noting that areas like Yuen Long and Tai Po used to be full of rice paddies.
Because many of these grains had nearly vanished locally, the team had to retrieve them from international seed banks in the Philippines and the United States.
Now, on its farms in Tai Po, the project has successfully revived 35 varieties of local rice. The group has also introduced new Hong Kong-bred varieties, including “Mo Shan See Mew” (霧山絲苗) as well as a white glutinous rice – the first of this type to be made in the city.
“Unlike Japanese or Thai rice, which can be quite sticky, many of our heritage Hong Kong varieties are very loose and fluffy with distinct grains. Some even have a slightly rubbery texture when you chew them,” the senior officer Kwok said.
While typical farmers focus solely on the harvest, Gift from Land is also rigorously collecting data. They have recorded over 10,000 data points documenting the crops’ growth cycles.
This effort has culminated in the recent publication of their Hong Kong Rice Catalogue, a comprehensive guide detailing the 35 distinct rice varieties, and an exhibition that detailed their rice farming journey and study.
Life spent in the fields
For the young farmer Kwok, his work at Lung Ah Pai is dictated by the seasons, revolving around two harvests every year. The early crop goes into the mud in March and is harvested by July, while the late crop is transplanted in August for a November harvest.
The crop cycle is a relentless loop of preparing seeds, ploughing the ground, weeding and managing water levels. Once the rice reaches a certain height, the team floods the paddies and monitors the mountain waterways. As the crops flower and the grains fill, the farmers drape bird netting across the fields to protect the delicate growths. After the harvest, the grains are processed into the rice we recognise.
“Whatever we don’t eat, we save as seeds for the next cycle,” Kwok said.
His connection to the land began in Form Three during a school programme about local rural culture.
“I’ve always been interested in nature and science, but going to the fields for the first time felt entirely new,” Kwok said. He recalled learning the basics of permaculture: creating compost by collecting restaurant food waste to mix with fallen leaves and dry grass.
That initial fascination deepened during a summer agricultural exchange programme in Japan, which was his first introduction to Gift from Land’s projects.
What ultimately drew Kwok to agriculture was a desire for autonomy.
“City jobs feel very rigid and lack flexibility; you’re always doing the same pile of tasks,” he said. “In the fields, everything is subject to change. If you want to alter the shape of your field or plant different varieties, you can implement new ideas immediately.”
As his current project nears its conclusion, Kwok and his colleagues plan to take their saved seeds to a new paddy to continue growing Hong Kong’s heritage rice.
The young farmer plans to continue cultivating the land while also pursuing an unexpected second passion. He referred to this lifestyle as “Half-Farmer, Half-X”.
“I hope to embody this concept by spending half my time farming and the other half doing something entirely different,” Kwok explained.
For his “Half-X”, he has set his sights on the digital world: he wants to translate his agricultural expertise into a video game that simulates the farming process.
“People often work just to make money and buy things, but I want to leave something lasting behind,” he said.
“I hope to use the knowledge I’ve gained to create a game that people can play and learn from for a long time.”
