Vegetable patches take root atop towers in Hong Kong

High above downtown Hong Kong’s bustling, traffic-clogged streets, a group of office workers was toiling away not on a corporate acquisition or a public share offering but on harvesting a bumper crop of lettuce atop one of the skyscrapers studding the city’s skyline.

It’s rooftop farming taken to the extreme, and more about reaping happiness than providing food.

The volunteers were picking butter lettuce, Indian lettuce and Chinese mustard leaf in rows of low black plastic planters on a decommissioned helipad on the 146-metre-high roof of the 38-storey Bank of America tower.

“It’s pretty dirty but still I really enjoy it,” said Catherine Ng, one of five volunteers who work for the property company managing the tower.

The farm is run by Rooftop Republic, a three-yearold startup whose founders are tapping growing interest in organic food and taking advantage of unused roof space in the cramped, high-rent Chinese city.

Hong Kong, with its skinny office blocks and apartment towers and busy, affluent residents, might seem an unlikely place for rooftop farming to catch on.

Rooftop Republic’s founders say the appetite for their services is growing among Hong Kongers who are seeking a more sustainable lifestyle and are concerned about where their food comes from.

“We have been getting more and more interest from people who want to grow their own food,” said Michelle Hong, one of the founders.

Rooftop Republic has set up, on average, one farm a month since its founding and now manages 36, covering more than about 2,800 square metres, including one in mainland China, Hong said.

Vegetables from the tower are donated to a food bank for uses in lunch boxes distributed to the needy.

Some of its other farms are at hotels or restaurants, which use the herbs, eggplants and melons for dishes on their menus.