climate change and social inequality and
do all the greatest challenges facing
humanity today and while these
challenges might seem as very different
issues they can actually have a mutually
beneficial solution what if we could
address climate change by making our
food system more sustainable while I’m
powering and provided job opportunities
for the most marginalized members of our
community at the same time well I’m here
today to share with you about the
potential of urban farming to be an
instrument for change not only
transforming the way we produce and we
consume our food but transforming
community livelihoods at the same time
so climate change we all know by now
that climate change is a reality and is
already affecting millions of people
around the world we’re already suffering
the effects of climate change from
rising sea levels to changing weather
patterns global warming extreme weather
events but we think about climate change
we tend to picture cars and factories or
powered ones not the food that we put on
our dinner tables and yet if we’re
concerned about threats to our
environment the first thing we should be
looking at is agriculture because it
turns out an agriculture is the greatest
contributors contributor to global
warming it emits more greenhouse gases
than all our cars trains boats planes
combines it’s also the largest user of
our precious water supplies the launches
user of land and it’s the major cost for
soil degradation and loss of
but if this picture wasn’t bad enough
imagine what 2050 will look like we will
have nine billion people on their own
home on earth and three-quarters of them
will be living in urban areas like Hong
Kong and to feed all of those mouths we
will need to increase our global food
production by a massive seventy percent
so how you’re going to do that we were
using all our resources to grow our food
how we going to feed ourselves and the
future generations without destroying
the planet in in the attempt well we
need to fundamentally seriously
reconsider the way we produce the way we
consume or even the way we think about
our food an urban farming is one
powerful way in which we can make our
food system more sustainable and if
there’s many cities around the world who
are already bringing farming activities
back into their urban spaces and trying
to find ways of making their food
systems more sustainable and that’s
because urban farming brings a whole
range of environmental benefits to a
city when we grow food closer to what is
consumed it means that we’re reducing
the distance that food travels to reach
our dinner tables a refinement also has
the potential to simplify our supply
chains and minimize all the packaging of
a storage thing or the refrigeration and
make a much more direct connection
between farm and table between farmer
and consumer urban farmer or returning
also offers opportunities to recycle
food waste and turned into compost or
more broadly at a city level urban
farming can be a tool to green urban
spaces and when put on rooftops on
rooftop farms we can actually help to
but urban farming is not only a tool for
change in our food system it can also be
an instrument to create economic
prosperity and create new jobs together
with my co-founders and we started
putting words into action and recreated
rooftop Republic a social enterprise
that promotes urban driving in Hong Kong
two years ago since then we have
transformed 22,000 square feet of
underused space into 22 vibrant and
green urban farms as urban farmers we
look at rooftops Albanese podiums window
sills not as empty spaces but as federal
land for our installations the response
so far has been overwhelmingly positive
and today we’re working with a wide
range of clients from schools to
property developers community
organizations corporations restaurants
hotels or even individuals who want to
grow their own best was at home so let
me tell you this the urban farming
revolution has arrived in hong kong is
here to stay but i was saying before I
urban farming is not only a tool for
change in our food system but can also
bring economic prosperity by creating
new jobs and by developing new local
industries in Hong Kong we’re seeing an
increasing the man for local food
especially for restaurants from grocery
stores from hotels or from healthy
conscious consumers that are growing the
mountain Hong Kong about the safety and
the quality of the food that we getting
most in foreign lands
and people are simply demanding for food
that’s safe that’s healthy thats
nutritious that’s locally produced and
that’s wrong in a sustainable way so in
meeting this demand for local food we
can actually empower local communities
and transform our food system an urban
farming we can do so we can do that in a
couple of ways one load bed urban
farming promotes the local economy this
is pretty pretty straightforward a
dollar spent on local food and with a
local farmer or with the local business
in turn this farmer might use this
daughter to buy compost from a nearby
facility or buy tools from a local store
the more these dollar changes hands
locally the more wealth we’re creating
locally and I said local farming or
retirement can also create jobs is
increasing demand for local food is
bringing new opportunities for local
farmers and for food starters right
ourselves and in turn we’re creating new
jobs but to capitalize on this market
opportunity with it a new generation of
urban farmers and then we can offer I
alone and attractive employment for the
most underprivileged methods of
opportunity if we have the right
resources the right policy the right
training we can empower these
communities to learn not only about
urban farming but also about
sustainability about business management
about marketing but construction about
irrigation about design all of these
skills will be useful will be profitable
to work in the urban farming industry
but also can be unbelievable too many
other spheres of our local economy in
Hong Kong the most unequal society among
developed countries we are trying to
make this a reality and over the last
couple of months we’ve been working with
silence
local NGO here supporting the Beast
hearing-impaired to trade nine of their
beneficiaries to become the urban
farmers of tomorrow they’ve been trained
by our professional organic farmers it’s
been incredible towards the progress as
a result of the program we know I have
learned some very cool sign language
attention to this means organic farming
in sign language but most importantly we
are thrilled to see that five out of
this nine participants actually
seriously taking up urban farming as a
career and we already employ one of them
to manage one of the farms that have
recently set up a tie pushing but of
course this is only a small step we need
to concern effort from all of us to
scale up this book man and you can get
involved with urban farming in several
different ways and I’ll suggest you
three tonight one grow your own at home
in to school in your office within your
community in your neighborhood to take a
stand the man our local government to do
more to take action the help our food
system become more sustainable 30 with
your fork sometimes we feel powerless
and we feel helpless when it comes to
addressing big complex global challenges
like climate change but as consumers we
have at least three boats per day so we
can choose which foot systems are we
supporting so use your form and support
local farmers and now I’d like to leave
you with a vision for a future Hong Kong
a city where we grow our own food where
we know how our meals make it to our
dinner tables a Sydney where we feel
connected with what we need and we know
our farmers
and we’re strong and inclusive
communities are nourished this journey
starts with a single mouthful the ends
with a healthier cleaner and fair city
thank you [Applause]