Post-war Hong Kong

Farmers in the New Territories worked hard to earn a living. The picture shows farmers watering a field.. Soon after the end of World War Two, civil war broke out in China. Escaping refugees surged into Hong Kong en masse. Some of the refugees were entrepreneurs and urban settlers who would later fuel Hong Kong’s industrial boom. Others who had no money or knew no skills, settled in the New Territories as subsistence farmers. In the early 1950s, only 13.5% of Hong Kong’s total land area was used for farming, and most of this was made up of paddy fields. Vegetable and livestock production were few. This meager farming production was far from sufficient to meet urban demand, and so Hong Kong’s population relied heavily on imported goods from China. However, the creation of the People’s Republic of China aroused concerns from Hong Kong’s colonial Government about their dependency on such imports. With the urban mouths to feed, immigrant farmers to settle and food security concerns, the Government became increasingly proactive with regards to strengthening Hong Kong’s agriculture. The picture shows farmer working hard on the field. The Kadoorie brothers: Horace (left) and Lawrence (right).