Dr. Daisy Tam, Research Assistant Professor of the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing, launched a project called “Greener Living: Micro-urban Farming and Turning Waste into Resource” to address the food-related social and environmental problems in Hong Kong by employing urban farming as a way to respond to these issues in a simple, holistic and fun way. Under the project, a vertical organic garden was created at HKBU, making use of underutilised space and waste material to grow organic vegetables on campus.

Dr. Tam, whose research focus is food and ethics, hopes this project will allow students to develop a critical awareness of their relationship with food and society and connect what they have learnt in class to their everyday lives, bringing together theory and practice.

Participants are encouraged to make creative uses of waste: collecting plastic bottles for vegetable growing, fertilising the saplings with compost made by the Department of Biology from leftovers from the canteen, and using common kitchen waste such as eggshells to fertilise the soil or as seedling nurseries.

Sarah Chung (Human Resource Management, year 2), said she earlier thought that food growing only happened in the countryside and that it was an activity out of the reach of urban dwellers, but she has now experienced that it is actually possible to grow vegetables at home or at school and that this is a good way to reduce waste and the resources involved in transportation.

The project is supported by Task Force on Sustainable Campus, Knowledge Transfer Office, Feeding Hong Kong and Time to Grow.