FarmFest 2026 Kicks Off Today, Showcasing Local Agriculture and Fisheries in Mong Kok!

2026-01-09 14:38 Last Updated At：17:47

FarmFest 2026 opens at Fa Hui Park in Mong Kok

FarmFest 2026 runs for three consecutive days from today (January 9) to January 11 at Fa Hui Park in Mong Kok to showcase a variety of local agricultural and fisheries products and other goods.

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FarmFest 2026 opens at Fa Hui Park in Mong Kok Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

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FarmFest 2026 opens at Fa Hui Park in Mong Kok Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Jointly organised by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD), the Vegetable Marketing Organization and the Fish Marketing Organization (FMO), FarmFest is the largest outdoor farmers' market in Hong Kong, where local producers can directly sell their products to consumers. Marking its 20th anniversary this year, FarmFest houses over 430 stalls, among which over 220 are selling local agricultural and fisheries products. There are also stalls selling local delicacies, organic and healthy food, and household goods.

An array of specialty agricultural and fisheries products is on sale during FarmFest, featuring premium agricultural products produced by local organic, hydroponic and accredited farms, including kale, carrots, snap beans and hydroponic cherry tomatoes. Local fresh fisheries products cultured by local accredited fish farms, such as speckled blue groupers, gilthead seabream, tilapia and Pacific white shrimp are also available. Additionally, a variety of new products developed through collaboration and research with the industry, academia, the AFCD and the FMO (including reservoir mud carp siu mai, reservoir fish soup, fish luncheon meat, black croaker fish balls and black croaker spring rolls), will also be available for sale at the event.

The AFCD has been committed to promoting sustainable development of the agricultural and fisheries industries. To deepen the public's understanding of the latest developments in these local sectors, FarmFest features agricultural, fisheries, and joint fisheries and agricultural exhibition zones to showcase the industry's latest developments and how technology enhances productivity while fostering industry diversification to expand the added value of the products, thereby strengthening the industry's competitiveness. Additionally, a stamp collection game is available in the exhibition zones, offering shopping discounts to participants who collect designated stamps.

The agricultural zone showcases various cultivation technologies and modern farming machinery, allowing the public to understand how modern technologies help save manpower, time and manual labour, thereby enhancing farming efficiency. In respect of hydroponic cultivation technology, the zone features an in-house designed Vertical Aeroponic Cultivation System. This soilless cultivation system integrates smart monitoring technology and multilayer planting design, directly spraying misted nutrient solutions onto the roots of the crops to supply the necessary nutrients, making it particularly suitable for the commercial cultivation of rhizome crops. The zone also displays a smart farm model, showcasing a smart greenhouse and a tractor model, demonstrating how Internet of Things technology (IoT) can be used to monitor and control environmental conditions of the greenhouse in real time, while mechanisation reduces manpower and boost productivity. AFCD staff will provide demonstrations and guide services to introduce the technologies and allow the public to experience operations. A large modern tractor is also on display for the public to gain a further understanding.

The fisheries zone exhibits new aquaculture technologies leading the industry towards modernisation and sustainable development. The public can experience the AFCD's modern mariculture demonstration farm at Tung Lung Chau through virtual reality technology, learning the advantages of semi-submersible steel truss deep sea cages over traditional wooden fish rafts. The zone also displays a container eco-culture system model and exhibition panels to illustrate the operation workflows and its ecological benefits. The public can also operate a drone personally to experience modern water sampling methods and use a microscope to examine phytoplankton in the water samples.

The joint fisheries and agricultural zone introduces the developments of leisure farming and fisheries, including the "Agri enJoy" Scheme and "Fish enJoy" Scheme, related tourism route information as well as the new unified brand for local agricultural and fisheries products to be launched this year, which provides safe, low-carbon and quality local agricultural and fisheries products, along with its certification and traceability systems. The zone offers agricultural and fisheries workshops such as plant dyeing, organic herb planting and pearl extraction, with participants receiving the finished products as souvenirs. In addition, a 3D photo backdrop with agriculture and fisheries themes with an instant photo service is available for the public to capture memories.

FarmFest also features music and cultural performances as well as cooking demonstrations. Admission is free. The event is open from 10am to 8pm, and a free shuttle bus service is available to and from Shek Kip Mei MTR Station Exit C.

The AFCD, in collaboration with Radio Television Hong Kong, has produced a series of short videos featuring local agricultural and fisheries products. The videos and details of FarmFest can be viewed at www.farmfest.hk (Chinese version only) or the FarmFest Facebook page at www.facebook.com/farmfesthk.

Financial Secretary Emphasizes Innovation, Inclusivity, and AI in CUHK EMBA Conference Speech

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference

Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at the CUHK EMBA Annual Conference today (May 9):

Professor Dennis Lo (Vice-Chancellor and President, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)), Professor Lin Zhou (Dean, CUHK Business School), Macy (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Ms Macy Chan), Michael (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Mr Michael Chan), CUHK EMBA alumni and students, business leaders, distinguished guests and friends,

Good evening.

Addressing a room full of Executive MBA students and graduates is both an honour and a privilege. There is a particular kind of ambition in this room — one that is not content with success alone, but driven to understand it more deeply, in the belief that better ideas lead to greater impact.

That kind of commitment — to learning, to growth, to asking harder questions — is precisely what today's conversation is about.

The theme of this conference, which focuses on innovation and agile leadership, could not be more timely. Most of us here have lived through the Internet age and the smartphone revolution, which made communication faster and more seamless than anyone had imagined.

Today, the rise of AI places us at a more fundamental tipping point. Technology is not merely changing the answers — it is redefining the questions themselves.

Consider what is already within reach. An AI assistant can learn your preferences, curate a personalised shortlist, and simply ask for your confirmation. We should even ask whether the smartphone and the search engine will remain our primary gateways to the digital world, or whether something altogether new is already taking shape.

To draw an analogy, the power of technology does not lie in drawing the old map with greater precision. It lies in revealing how much of that map remains uncharted — and in showing us that entirely new maps, with new co-ordinates, are being drawn.

This redefinition is unfolding across three dimensions simultaneously.

First, the redefinition of products. Products are no longer discrete, standalone objects. A smart car is a vehicle, but also a mobile platform for data. An insurance policy can be a contract, but equally a dynamic reflection of health data. Innovation today is born from cross-sector convergence and continuous evolution.

Second, the redefinition of services. Services are no longer delivered solely by enterprises. They emerge from collaborative networks of people and AI. But the more profound shift is in what customers now expect. In the past, good service meant reaching the right person quickly. Today, customers expect a solution that anticipates their needs before articulating them. This requires a new architecture of service delivery: human and machine, with AI handling the scale, the speed, and the personalisation that no human team alone could sustain.

Third, and most importantly, the redefinition of business models. In the past, we sought optimal solutions within established frameworks — when demand rose, we expanded capacity; when service needs grew, we opened more branches. Technology invites us to break out of those frameworks entirely. Intelligent manufacturing means that "economies of scale" is no longer the only answer; flexible supply chains have made customised, on-demand production the new normal.

These three redefinitions are opening a commercial frontier unlike anything we have seen before. But if the benefits of technology accrue only to a small circle, its power remains fundamentally constrained. This brings me to the second message I want to leave with you today: inclusivity.

Inclusivity is not charity. Yet it is the smartest business strategy available. The unmet needs of the broader public represent the largest and most underserved market opportunity in existence. When you make quality healthcare, education and financial services accessible and affordable to ordinary residents, you are not serving a group in need of handouts — you are unlocking a vast market that traditional business models have consistently overlooked.

Hong Kong has a distinctive role to play here. We can be a co-architect of standards, a hub for capital, and a bridge between innovation and real-world deployment — from clinical validation of smart healthcare, to green technology financing, to regulatory sandboxes for fintech. Our contribution draws not only on institutional strengths and international networks, but on our genuine commitment to broad-based participation.

Yet inclusive products and services are only the first step. The deeper dimension is empowerment.

History reminds us that the dividends of technological revolution need to be actively guided to reach the many. In the age of steam, and again in the Internet era, early gains concentrated among capital owners and top-tier talent. But today we have the opportunity to write a different story. AI, as an amplifier of human capability, is already enabling what was previously unimaginable: a solo entrepreneur, with the right tools and the right vision, can build a unicorn.

In other words, the unit of competitive advantage is shifting — from the size of your team to the skill with which you orchestrate your tools.

Our mission should be to make that shift available to everyone. To turn individual readiness into collective prosperity, and to ensure that the productivity gains of AI flow broadly across the society.

This is precisely why, in this year's Budget, I placed such emphasis on the "AI Training for All" initiative.

We are not trying to turn everyone into an engineer. We are ensuring that workers, managers, SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) owners, and ordinary residents become capable collaborators with AI: people who can access it, use it effectively, and put it to work as their assistant.

That may sound ambitious, but consider this: if AI can one day be as intuitive as the smartphone, then mass adoption is not difficult to imagine at all. Just as computers once migrated from specialist facilities into offices and homes, AI will find its way into everyone's daily work and life.

For business leaders, it may be tempting to think of AI as "digital employee" that can replace existing workers. But think of a different framing: equipping your workforce with powerful digital assistants can achieve productivity gains, while also freeing your people to do what humans do best — create, imagine and innovate.

Companies that take those extra steps, and think those extra moves ahead, will find that an empowered workforce is also a more innovative one.

All in all, the power of technology must ultimately be measured by its contribution to inclusive growth. And inclusive growth, in the end, depends on, yes, commercial acumen — but also empathy, compassion, and the conviction that a rising tide should lift all boats. I can see that those qualities live in this room.

I will close with this thought. Someone once joked that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. With AI, let us never fall into the same trap — in our race to price every efficiency gain, let us not lose sight of the deeper value we are trying to create: a society where the fruits of innovation are broadly shared, and where technology lifts not just the fortunate few, but everyone willing to reach for it.

So here is my ask: let us grow the pie together. And make sure we cut it well.

Thank you very much.

FarmFest 2026 Kicks Off Today, Showcasing Local Agriculture and Fisheries in Mong Kok!

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