Establishing the Institute of Bioresource and Agriculture

Project Overview

The New Agricultural Policy announced by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in its 2016 Policy Address emphasises the importance of agriculture in the sustainable development of Hong Kong and the promotion of organic agriculture as a sustainable option for future development. Separately, the Consumer Council's report on the sustainable consumption of Hong Kong residents, published in 2016, indicates that we are poor in sustainable practices in our daily living. Through the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited 150th Anniversary Charity Programme, funding was made available to support signature projects for the betterment of the Hong Kong community. The proposal to establish the Institute of Bioresource and Agriculture (IBA) was successfully selected as one of the beneficiaries of the programme with a donation of HK$37.26 million.

The overall goal of establishing the IBA is to provide a professional platform to help vitalise the local agricultural industry, conserve bioresources and biodiversity, and cultivate public education on sustainability practices in the community.

The IBA will endeavour to:

Develop the research infrastructure to provide research in support of sustainable agriculture and indigenous biological resources management;
Cultivate a new generation of professionals to prepare for the new era of development in the agricultural sector in Hong Kong resulting from the implementation of the New Agricultural Policy by the HKSAR Government;
Develop education modules to assist farmers to move towards professionalism in their trade through knowledge enhancement and technology advancement;
Educate and raise public awareness on the sustainable consumption of biological resources through living a sustainable and organic lifestyle as part of the sustainable development of Hong Kong; and
Establish the S Gallery, an interactive learning centre focused on bioresource and sustainable living.

The IBA has developed a research platform supported by a research group of local academics and professionals who will make a concerted effort to identify key issues in local agricultural sectors and develop research projects to provide solutions to local farmers. The following are some research projects that have either been conducted or are being planned:

A baseline study on soil health and fertility in order to provide an extension service to support local farmers;
Develop high-nutrient and low-cost compost materials from food waste for organic agriculture;
Develop new biopesticides from Chinese medicinal herbal residues;
A plant-breeding programme for the selection of tolerant plant species for southern China; and
The conservation of biological resources and biodiversity – indigenous resource management through agricultural activities.

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Establishing the Institute of Bioresource and Agriculture

Grant

Received HK$37.26 million from the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited 150th Anniversary Charity Programme.

Publications

Kaur, Guneet, Liwen Luo, Guanghao Chen, Jonathan WC Wong. “Integrated food waste and sewage treatment–A better approach than conventional food waste-sludge co-digestion for higher energy recovery via anaerobic digestion.” Bioresource Technology 121698 (2019).
Luo, Liwen, Guneet Kaur, Jonathan WC Wong. “A mini-review on the metabolic pathways of food waste two-phase anaerobic digestion system.” Waste Management & Research 37(4) (2019): 333-346.
Kaur, Guneet, Jonathan WC Wong, Johnravindar Davidraj, Kristiadi Uisan, Raffel Dharma Patri. International Conference on Solid Waste 2019, November 13-16, Hangzhou, China.
Kaur, Guneet, Jonathan WC Wong, Kristiadi Uisan, Raffel Dharma Patria, Johnravindar Davidraj. Engineering Sustainable Development Conference, Korea University, Seoul, December 12-13, 2019.
Tsui, To-Hung, and Jonathan W. C. Wong, “A Critical Review: Emerging Bioeconomy and Waste-to-Energy Technologies for Sustainable Municipal Solid Waste Management.” Waste Disposal & Sustainable Energy (2019).
Luo, L., & Wong, J. W. “Enhanced food waste degradation in integrated two-phase anaerobic digestion: Effect of leachate recirculation ratio.” Bioresource technology, 291 121813 (2019).

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Chakraborty, Debkumar, Jonathan WC Wong, Guneet Kaur. International Conference on Solid Waste ICSW 2019, Nov. 13-16, 2019.
Johnravindar D, Guneet Kaur, Debkumar Chakraborty, Jonathan WC Wong. Effect of biochar addition on VFA degradation and methane production in anaerobic co-digestion. International conference on solid waste (ICSW) November 13-16, 2019 Hang Zhou, China.
Johnravindar D, Guneet Kaur, Jonathan WC Wong, Investigate the impact of biochar addition on VFA degradation and methane production in food waste/sludge co-digestion, International Conference on New Horizons in Biotechnology (NHBT-2019) November 20-24, 2019; Trivandrum, Kerala, India.