Hi everyone! Welcome to “the uncommon senses” Podcast. In this new series, “Sustainable Living Pod”, we collaborate with Sustainable Smart Campus as a Living Lab in HKUST and explore technologies and projects by faculties and students that create a change to sustainability on campus and beyond. Agriculture. A topic unfamiliar to many of us urban dwellers in Hong Kong, and yet closely influences our daily lives for the obvious reason: we eat everyday. However, did you know that Global food systems accounted for 31% of human-made greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)? Aside from sustainability, did you know around 78 percent of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas and rely largely on agriculture?
These days, novel and data driven technologies on food production are being explored and developed quickly, with the aim to minimize the carbon footprint contributed by agriculture, explore the possibility of urban farming, alleviate social stress such as farmers’ quality of life, and solve economic problems including poverty in rural areas.
Joining us today is Prof Zhongming Lu, the assistant professor from the division of environment & sustainability in HKUST. Their project, Aquaponics in HKUST offers a possibility for more efficient agriculture.
Make sure to follow sustainable smart campus’s socials on instagram: @ssc_hkust. Many thanks to HKUST Center for Language Education (CLE) for the podcast recording venue!
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
05:02 Technology of the Aquaponics system
10:20 Urban Agriculture: aquaponics system & commercial implementation
17:56 Urban Agriculture: sustainability in businesses
22:17 Urban Agriculture: circularity and education
27:18 Rural Agriculture: how smart technology could be implemented
39:44 Ending