As the proprietor of Farmhouse Productions, a Kam Tin-based farm, Chunling serves Hong Kong’s top green restaurants and sustainable consumers
There was never “a dramatic breakdown or emotional awakening” for Chunling Fong in becoming a farmer after a 13-year-long career in advertising.
“I had always wanted to be a farmer since I was a kid,” Chunling tells Foodie. “Ask any kid on what they want to be, you’ll hear doctor or teacher. I think every child has this inclination of wanting to be something. With modern-day culture, that’s suppressed to a point where kids are forced to switch that intuition off.”
At the end of 2019, as Chunling’s final advertising agency contract finished, her free-will spirit led her to trade her office profession of convincing the public to consume to producing local green goods that Hong Kongers can consume.
“I began volunteering at our farm in Kam Tin as the former owner wanted to leave Hong Kong. The farm was already certified organic.”
Joining the Kam Tin farming space for Chunling was uniquely challenging as a new farmer. “I began farming [fruits and vegetables] with zero idea on what I was doing. I found four mentors who were really generous in sharing their knowledge.”
In early 2020, Farmhouse Productions was founded, a regenerative organic farm sourcing organic fruits and vegetables from a team of local New Territories farmers, providing produce to customers and restaurants across the city.
In a city where more than 95% of our vegetables are imported via carbon-emitting ships or airplanes, Chunling, and budding farmers alike, have struck up a mission to tell a local food story of Hong Kong, taking pride in the fertile ground that feeds us.
A total of 122 organic farms operate in Hong Kong, a majority based in areas bordering Shenzhen like Kam Tin, Yuen Long, Sheung Shui, and Tai Po, where land is more plentiful than the city’s southern concrete neighborhoods.
“I came to the conclusion that good food can only come from good agriculture, because agriculture does not lie. The reason why we’re eating so much bad-tasting or bland food is because it’s grown with bad agriculture.
“Good agriculture means regenerative farming, the practice of improving soil health and water retention by maintaining good root health and crop diversity. When you are not farming in a regenerative manner, you are disregarding the supplements the earth needs, pumping the ground with [rubbish] like chemical nitrogen, chemical calcium, or industrial-strength phosphorus.”
Farmhouse Productions’ soil produces a plethora of vegetation farmed by Chunling and her team, benefitting the natural climate cycle in Hong Kong with swathes of rain and sun and employing low-intervention farming practices. “Good food is a reward that the earth gives us back for looking after it properly.”
As Chunling bettered her farming skills, Farmhouse Productions became an alternative source of produce for home-delivery services during the early days of the pandemic shut-in. In beating supply-chain issues that fraught Hong Kong, local consumers were eager to cook with and enjoy local and flavourful organic produce.
In this current season, Farmhouse Productions sends out weekly Monday and Thursday order lists to their farm-to-table delivery network. Delivering across Hong Kong, vegetables like okra, corn, aubergine, cucumber, and string bean, fruits such as banana, honey fig, lemon, and watermelon, leafy greens such as bok choy, chive, and choy sum, edible flowers, and roots like ginger, turmeric, and sweet potato are sourced from the Kam Tin farmlands.
The local storytelling element of Farmhouse Productions’ organic story in producing greens, fruits, spices, and root vegetables in Hong Kong, a true rarity today, equally inspired restaurateurs and chefs during the early 2020s to localise their menus in order to embrace a true Hong Kong sustainable identity.
Launching in Hong Kong in 2021, the Michelin Green Star denotes restaurants that champion a sustainable mission to source and cook locally. Chunling works with chefs at Amber, Feuille, Mora, and Roganic, amongst a litany of restaurants in Hong Kong, producing orders of locally farmed greens for their seasonal menus.
“Our order list for restaurants gets updated weekly, which could be challenging for restaurants. I have so much admiration and respect for the chefs who can indeed work with us, because it just takes much more dedication and effort to make this relationship work.”
The price of her produce, ranking more expensive than imported vendors operating in Hong Kong, is seemingly not an issue for consumers and restaurants in Hong Kong that are passionate about the food they eat. “When you look after the earth, the Earth looks after you,” says Chunling.
How has Chunling inspired a generation of farmers in Hong Kong to grow locally? “Local food does not necessarily have a good brand image,” she admits. “That is not to blame the consumers; farmers also have not been doing a good job in promoting local produce. It’s really difficult for consumers – I have to acknowledge that.”
“Unless you’re fasting, you’re eating food at least once every 24 hours. Hong Kong loves eating, yet it is really strange to me how little people think about the food, where it comes from, how it’s grown, who’s grown it, or who’s made it.
“We pay so much money for food, but do we actually think about where it comes from? I would like people to be more curious as to where the food comes from.”
Contact Farmhouse Productions today if you’re interested in home delivery of local produce or want to source your restaurant with New Territories’ freshest greens.
