Heat Waves and Our Food System
Heat Waves are effects of climate change. Food System activities generate large amounts of GhG emissions and have a huge impact on the environment.
Heat Waves are effects of climate change. Food System activities generate large amounts of GhG emissions and have a huge impact on the environment.
The anxiety of a citywide lockdown due to COVID has driven the population into another round of panic buying, leaving a trail of empty shelves in their wake.
Interview discussing Covid19 price hikes. I share my views on the vulnerability of our urban food system, the opportunity to address food security during times of COVID, drawing on examples of neighboring cities.
Food waste is a global issue, but for Asian cities like Singapore and Hong Kong, the majority of the waste comes from the retail and consumption end of the food cycle.
Our dystopic food system produces both both hunger and excess, a logic so contradictory that seems only possible in dystopic futures of cyber punk fiction.
In every crisis there is an opportunity, and now is the time to rethink what living could mean if we were to put urban agriculture on the agenda. Growing food in the city is not a return to the past, it is a vision of sustainability and resilience.
COVID19 is deepening the hunger crisis. According to Oxfam’s latest report, 12,000 people per day will die from hunger caused by the pandemic pandemic – potentially more than the COVID death toll. Daisy Tam discusses hunger crisis with Karen Koh on RTHK Radio – 123 show.
Pushing my trolley around the supermarkets’ empty shelves a few months ago – I couldn’t help but replay the scene from World War Z where Brad Pitt stocks up for doomsday. The pandemic has revealed our food system’s vulnerabilities
Sourcing local and seasonal has become the response to the disruptions seen in our food supply chain. More than just a temporary solution, local production should be part of the city’s resilience planning – contingency for future risks.
The food shortage we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerabilities of our food system. In Hong Kong, we are overly dependent on imports and have little buffer in our supply chain.
So proud to see Breadline featured alongside other innovative projects selected to represent the New Asia in Tatler’s launch issue. In every field and discipline, there are those who break the mould and I am pleased to be considered part of that wave.
What would we eat after the apocalypse? What future foods would be available and in what forms? In this playful take on the future of food, I threw an apocalyptic feast and invited my audience to a tasting menu of reconstituted eggs, vacuum packed steaks, and canned fruit and freeze dried vegetables.
The future of food is tied to the future of our cities. In this interview on RTHK, I framed the urban food system in the context of sustainability.
In this interview with Noreen Mir, we chatted about my latest work Breadline – what it is, how it works and how this whole interdisciplinary project came to be.
Breadline makes its debut! This is the first crowdsourcing food rescue web application in Hong Kong that connects donors with volunteers and charities so surplus food can be delivered to those who need it.
In my talks, I have often spoken of the benefits of food donation or food rescue. In this video, I followed one of Hong Kong’s leading food rescue organization – FoodLink to share a meal at one of their beneficiaries – Faith and Grace Church in Kwun Tong.
Hong Kong and Singapore are often considered twin cities on the global stage – it is similar in terms of size and wealth. In this long awaited opportunity to speak in Singapore, I presented the case of Hong Kong.
My view is that urban agriculture is not a thing of the past, many cities in the world are experimenting with different modes of growing food in the city as a way of building resilience.
What did you say? A hackathon on food security and resilience? How could I not jump at the opportunity to participate in this exciting event hosted by Northeastern University’s School of Journalism in Boston!
An opportunity to discuss the state of Hong Kong’s urban food system. How do we begin to build a stronger, more food secure city? From production, to distribution and consumption, I offer my thoughts on the subject.
Speaking to a packed room of students at City University was a great way to kick start 2018! Introducing students from the School of Creative Media with diverse backgrounds in Art, Animation, Photography Digital Video, Games, Installation to the study of food was challenging as it was rewarding. The talk “Securing our Food System” invited the audience to rethink our food system.
As part of the Interdisciplinary Unit of their IB curriculum, this group of Grade 7s from Hong Kong Academy spent the whole week learning about food security. Speaking to a group of 60 well-informed and curious minds was quite the challenge – what a lively discussion! Despite the fact that there is no such thing as Food Studies in Hong Kong, I’m glad to know that the topic is slowly making its way into various curriculums!
The Zurich University of the Arts hosted a talk series on the topic of Ecologies: Matters of Coexistence for their graduate students coming from Switzerland, Singapore, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong as part of their Transcultural Collaboration programme. Consuming Nature was a dialogue between myself and Artist Tsang Tak Ping with a good 60 people in the audience thinking together about our relationship to nature and what it means to co-exist.
A one-day event that brought together practitioners and entrepreneurs who are keen to change the way we eat. My panel “The Big Picture” kickstarted the day by looking at the bigger picture of global food trends, the challenges we face and alternatives that might change our food future.
Ahead of the Food Future Summit, I was asked about my hopes and fears for the future. Issues of overpopulation, intensive agriculture, over consumption were my list of usual suspects. What threw me was the final question of what is my favourite food, as an advocate of sustainable food systems, I had to choose my answer very carefully. Find out the answer in this interview and be apocalyptic ready!
This has been a long-awaited workshop. Taking place in the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, this seminar brought together academics and researchers working in the field of urban resilience.
After my TedX talk on Hong Kong’s Food Security, many were shocked to learn how vulnerable Hong Kong’s food system is. Quartz Journalist Echo Huang followed up with an interview to get the low down on how cities like Hong Kong, actually feeds itself.
An opportunity to speak to an audience of 1200 at the Academy of Performing Arts – the largest Tedx event here in Hong Kong! In spite of its status as Asia’s gourmet city, Hong Kong is in fact NOT food secure. “How secure is food? The case of Hong Kong” gives a quick overview of our urban food system and urges the government, businesses and individuals to put food on the agenda in order to start the change we need today.
In this opinion piece (Initium), I was invited to write about my research on Hong Kong’s food system. Framing the issue of hunger and food waste in the wider context of food security, I argued that food waste is everyone’s problem. Building a secure food system is not just about poverty alleviation or environmental protection, but the fundamental foundation of sustainable urban development. (in Chinese only)
As part of the month long event aimed at using technology to tackle food waste in the F&B sector in Hong Kong, Metta held a series of 5 workshops bringing together industry leaders, start-ups, NGOs and researchers into discussion.