Amid price hikes for mainland produce during coronavirus outbreak, Hong Kong farms get used to an unfamiliar sight – queues

While fresh vegetables are still found on supermarket shelves, soaring prices mean local farmers are suddenly competitive

But numerous community farmers in the New Territories are facing eviction this year to make room for residential developments

5-MIN READ5-MIN

People purchase vegetables at Mapopo Community Farm in Ma Shi Po Village in Fanling. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 9:00am, 16 Feb 2020Updated: 10:12am, 9 May 2020

Hongkongers are used to standing in queues, never more so than in recent weeks, as blocks-long lines of residents seeking surgical masks and sanitiser have become the norm.

But a queue outside a farm? That would have been hard to imagine until about two weeks ago, when scores of people began flocking to a family farm in the New Territories town of Fanling.

“We have a lot of people here waiting, so please do not rush, we hope everyone is able to buy the vegetables they want today,” Becky Au Hei-man, 34, a third-generation farmer, told the queue of three dozen customers that snaked around Mapopo Community Farm last Sunday.

Driven by escalating fears amid the coronavirus outbreak, which as of Saturday had infected 56 Hongkongers, panic-stricken residents have taken to emptying shelves of rice and toilet paper in major supermarkets.

Fresh vegetables, meanwhile, though largely still available, have soared in price.

Becky Au Hei-man, co-founder of Mapopo Community Farm, in Fanling. Photo: Dickson Lee

As fears around the virus first grew following the Lunar New Year holiday, produce prices jumped anywhere from 30 to 100 per cent, according to the government-backed Vegetable Marketing Organisation (VMO).