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Shine muscat grapes grown in Hong Kong? This farmer is doing it – using baby milk formula
Yan Fuqin’s organic farm in Kwu Tung uses Mead Johnson formula to grow soft, creamy shine muscat grapes, but its future is under threat
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In a corner of Hong Kong’s Tsuen Wan Market, a bustling indoor market where the floor is permanently damp and the air smells of wet fabric and drying fish, a sign reads Fu Kam Organic Farm. Below it, a cluster of grapes hangs from a metal pole – plump, luminous and impossibly glossy. There is no premium packaging, no branded box, no chilled display case, just bunches of shine muscat – the darling of Japanese fruit fanatics – and the woman who grew them.
“Come buy our local, organic shine muscat grapes!” a voice booms in accented Cantonese. “Grown with Mead Johnson baby milk formula!”
This is Yan Fuqin, known as “Sister Kam”. Before I can ask what baby milk formula has to do with grapes, she is already ushering me towards her car.
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“Come,” she says. “I’ll show you.”
She drives me to her farm, also known as Fu Kum Organic Pitaya Farm, in Kwu Tung, a rural stretch between Sheung Shui and Lok Ma Chau that has somehow resisted urban development – until now.
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Born in rural Chongqing to a family of farmers, Yan moved to Hong Kong in 1997 to join her husband, who reared pigs. However, when the government launched a voluntary buyout scheme for pig farms in 2006, her husband’s operation was cancelled the following year. She needed a new way to farm.
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