words irma widjojo

With a patch of soil, some chemical-free know-how and a big bunch of flowers, Hillary Hui has escaped the stress of the city.

What words would you use to describe Hong Kong? City life, party town, or maybe the metropolis of amazing food? Most probably, no eulogy would mention the word ‘farming’. Nevertheless bc went to the far end of the city and discovered a lady with a green thumb.

For some, giving up a $30,000 a month salary for one less than a half of that would be out of the question. But for 43-year-old Hillary Hui, it was not a big deal at all. ‘Money,’ she says, ‘is not important, as long as I can do what I like and live comfortably.’

Hui was a secondary school teacher until August 2007 when she realized it was not the job she wanted to do for the rest of her life. ‘I loved teaching, and I still do, but being a teacher in Hong Kong is getting too much,’ she says, citing a host of responsibilities beyond the classroom, including endless meetings and patrolling malls looking for students smoking after school. ‘I had to turn students away because I always had something else to do,’ she complains. ‘The job wasn’t rewarding anymore to me.’ That frustration prompted a life-altering move: She decided to trade the blackboard and chalk for a straw hat and a big piece of land in Kam Tin – and FlowerWorld Organic Farm was born.

FlowerWorld, as the name suggests, is first and foremost a producer of flowers. It is a source of pride to Hui that hers is the first farm in Hong Kong to concentrate on blooms, although she also grows a variety of produce, from strawberries to pumpkins and red corn. It is all organic, meaning, she explains, that she uses no chemicals on the soil or plants and is mindful of the ecological balance in the environment.

Hui has herself settled into that balance as, far from the haste of the city existence she was once used to, she now lives out of a rustic and quaint house built on the edge of her land. As she walks across the soil she tills, she finds farming therapeutic. ‘I feel like I’m combined with nature here,’ she says.

According to the Produce Green Foundation, an environmental education group that started the organic farming movement in Hong Kong in 1988, of the current 270 organic farms in Hong Kong some are traditionally family-operated, others enterprise-operated and yet others are self-claimed or educational hobby farms. The average production of organic vegetables is three to five tonnes per day, distributed through supermarkets, health food stores, wet markets and farmers’ markets.

Hui’s move to organic farming reflects a general increase of interest in organics in Hong Kong. The foundation’s statistics list only one organic farm in the ’80s and 10 in the ’90s: The sudden increase to some 270 can be attributed to many things, says the foundation, such as consumers’ awareness of health and safety concerns around chemicals used in farming and the government’s push to convert conventional farms into organics.

In December 2004, the Hong Kong Organic Resource Centre created guidelines for certification standards for organic farmers and food processor. But Hui says, for her, certification would just be an unnecessary hassle as she doesn’t produce enough to be sold outside of her own farm. ‘I don’t need a certificate to prove that [my farm is] actually organic,’ she says. ‘As long as I know that I’m not using any chemicals, I know my farm is organic.’

Hui has also developed FlowerWorld as a recreational and educational destination that now attracts people for a variety of reasons. ‘Families come here to take their children away from the TV and the computer. Some couples come regularly to rent a piece of land, and farm their own seeds. Or schools bring their students to introduce them to farming.’ And for Hui, that last is the best aspect of welcoming visitors to her sanctuary. ‘I feel like by doing this, I’m still teaching,’ she says. ‘This is the kind of teaching that I want to do. It’s a different kind of education.’

In fact, it was teaching that led her to the farm as an alternative livelihood in the first place. In school geography classes, she had to teach various aspects of agriculture and that piqued her interest to the point where it suggested an escape from Hong Kong’s chaotic city life. ‘Now my schedule is so flexible and I can actually do the things that I like. People, especially my parents, always ask me why I did this to myself. But I don’t care. Even though I don’t earn as much, but I can’t be greedy, right?’ she says, light-heartedly.

Hui manages the 30,000 sq ft farm alone, apart from the sporadic help of a few mentally handicapped people she pays some $30 an hour for a few hours a week. That is part of the philanthropic project, Hong Kong Helping People Association, she started in December 2007, just a few months after opening FlowerWorld. It is an organization focused on assisting people with mental handicaps. ‘I feel that they are the people who need the most help,’ she says. ‘This [work on the farm] is easy for them to understand, and at least they can get some money for themselves.’ She is further looking to arrange special programmes for students of schools for the mentally handicapped in September. ‘I think this is a good way for them to learn new things, and who knows, maybe they like it so much that they can work here after they graduate.’

A city slicker may well shudder at the idea of looking after a farm 24 hours a day seven days a week without regular everyday contact with others, but for Hui the daily life of a farmer is easy. ‘I don’t stress and I laugh a lot,’ she says. ‘It does get a little boring being here on the farm all the time, so I do go to the city too to meet up with friends from time to time. I’m single and available, why not meet more people?’ Why not indeed, especially when it means you get the best of both worlds.

For more information about Hillary Hui’s farm, visit www.flowerworldhk.com/ and to learn more about organic farming in Hong Kong, visit www.afcd.gov.hk/.

To find locally grown organic products, head over to these farmers’ markets:
Kadoorie Farm
Lam Kam Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong
Every first Sunday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Central Star Ferry Pier
Every Sunday, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
KCR East Rail Tai Wo Station
Every Sunday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

For further information, call 2471 1169