Rice that's fresh, fragrant and home-grown
Green group and farmers turn Long Valley into productive and ecologically sound area
Home-grown brown rice is taking the richness of Hong Kong's paddies to the dining table, with the help of a green group and government funds.
The harvest, named Long Valley eco paddy rice after its place of origin, is reaped from the largest remaining freshwater farmland in Sheung Shui.
That makes the brown rice a product of local soil and water.
"It smells exceptionally good," said Katie Chick Hiu-lai, conservation manager of the Conservancy Association in charge of the Long Valley paddy rice programme.
"The supermarket varieties might have been kept in the warehouse for more than a year before they reach consumers. Ours is very fresh, bearing the rich smell of the paddy."
But consumers will not find it easily in the market as supply is extremely low. The latest harvest, which was completed earlier this month, yielded just 1,500kg of rice - chaff included.
Some of the rice will be reserved for the people who have toiled and sweated to grow and harvest the crop - the farmers and volunteers - as well as families and companies.
Since 2009, the project has been cultivating rice in two seasons each year with the support of the Environment and Conservation Fund.
Farmers grow the Guangzhou rice as their mainstream strain, but also test other strains.
Chick said the rice cost more - about HK$64 per kilogram - because of the small scale of production in an area of 8,500 square metres. But that was the price to pay for efforts to improve the ecology, which was the primary aim of the funded programme.
Twice a year, some fields are left unharvested, so the grains become a big feast for the birds. The most notable bird is the yellow-breasted bunting, once thought to be almost extinct.
Their numbers have been quite steady in recent years, with about 30 buntings sighted at the paddies last year.
Chick said the project had not only reshaped Long Valley's landscape and lifted the ecological value of the bird haven, but also consolidated the farmers' social and family relationships.
"The rice cultivation has become a magnet as some of the farmers' family members returned and visited their parents or relatives and were eager to find out more about planting rice."
