Most of us urban-dwellers never experience the joy of growing our own vegetables and become disconnected from our food. In a city that imports over 98% of its fresh vegetables, HKU Holistic Urban Farming aims to bring the community closer to the nature and foster a sense of responsibility to our natural environment through organic and sustainable farming on campus.
HKU Holistic Urban Farming endeavours to re-connect people with nature, and to explore and promote the positive impacts of sustainable urban farming and gardening activities on the wellbeing of people and the communities.
Our Vision
Our Spaces
Cesar Jung-Harada
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Architecture
Knowing that my workplace has such a magical place, where staff and students are "just people" tending to a garden, makes the campus a place that I can relate to, that I can love and care for. I am thankful and I hope to see more areas of the campus like the rooftop garden, where students and staff are entrusted to be creative, open to experimentation, and increase wellbeing and our sense of belonging to this place.
Vivian Chu
Assistant Lecturer, The Centre for Civil Society and Governance, Faculty of Social Sciences
I have gained invaluable exposure and experience from participating in this highly interdisciplinary Project, which has greatly enriched the content of the courses I teach for various programmes at the University. At this rate, I can only see more fruits being borne by the Project as the University commits itself to further resources in promoting this meaningful cause.
Lap Szeto
Staff, Department of Chemistry, HKU
Every time I go up to the rooftop and see the seedlings growing taller and taller, then flowers starting to grow, blossom, then wilt and turn into small fruit, the fruit growing bigger and bigger and finally ripe and harvested. The joy from the process is priceless. Very often, after a busy morning of work, going up to the rooftop helps me to find the tranquility from the inside, and I get refreshed and get back to work re-energised.
Ella C Forsberg
Student, BArch Y4
The rooftop farm to me represents a commitment and movement within the university to work for sustainability, and its presence alone inspires me to think further and believe in the possibility of doing more sustainability related projects on campus. The persistence of the projects shows that HKU can be a space for us to realise projects that we are passionate about! I still regularly show the farm to new friends, and it always sparks discussion, new ideas and new friendships.
Sammie Ng
Student, BArch Y4
Edible Spaces is a space filled with love, community and hope. It is a collective effort which has brought staff and students together, to share space, exchange knowledge and build community. It is an example of not only dreaming of better futures for our cities, but actually coming together to try to do it - starting with where we are and what we have. The seeds sown in Edible Spaces take weeks, months and sometimes years of tender care to bear fruit, symbolising the overlapping hopes which members have for the world - whether it is for people to be more ecologically-minded, more caring and/or more inclusive.
Oscar Chan Tsz Ho
Student, MAcct Y1
As an urban farmer, I already love planting at my home's balcony and I feel grateful to have this learning experience to broaden my knowledge. It also influenced and raised my attention on the existing environmental organisations and issues in HK. Most importantly, the passion from the staff, the amount of care and effort to manage the farm has inspired me to improve constantly in being a better and responsible individual. I would say the rooftop farm is one of the vital and valuable asset in HKU that showcases environmental sustainability in the most down-to-earth way.
Herb Garden is a community garden outside the Main Library growing mostly herbs. It is purposely founded on Earth Day (Apr 22, 2018) and the annual celebration is also a highlight and reminder for students to rethink about our life choices. Herb Garden hosts regular community activities to share herbs, cuttings and seedlings, and to promote sustainable living and wellbeing. The activities conducted in Herb Garden were further developed with an emphasis on promoting wellbeing and mindfulness.
Established in 2013, the Rooftop Farm provides organic farming workshops and farming space for students and staff to spread the joy of growing our own food. The farm was first established on the rooftop of the Runme Shaw Building in HKU's Main Campus (2013-2021) and relocated to the roof garden of the Meng Wah Complex in 2022.
Friends at HKU
The New Farm was set up in early 2015 to promote sustainable living and experiential learning among residents in New College. Members learn farming techniques, grow varieties of food and manage our own composting system. Beyond environmental sustainability, we also care about social sustainability by building bonds of community within ourselves as well as with others in the neighbourhood, through food and knowledge exchange.