On any given day, the air pollution in Hong Kong gets so severe that a thick cloud of smog envelops the buildings across the harbor. But travel with chef Margaret Xu Yuan about an hour outside the island to Yuen Long, a neighborhood in Hong Kong’s New Territories, and you’ll find yourself in a lush, green paradise.

Yuan owns more than one acre of land where she grows herbs, fruits and vegetables to use in the famed dishes that make her private kitchen, Yin Yang, in the Wan Chai neighborhood, one of the hottest reservations in the city. “When I first opened Yin Yang in 2008, I made a commitment to make organically based, fresher Hong Kong-style Chinese food,” she said. “So in order to do that I rented this place, and got myself this farm first."

She grows anything she likes, including figs, eggplants and even fresh honey, but “one of the problems I have when it comes to certain ingredients is fish,” Yuan said. “You can find fish here from all over the world but you don’t know if it’s reliable.” She prefers the locally grown species like black mullet and jade perch, and spends an average of about HK$4,000 on fish. 

Many of the local freshwater fish farmers have troubles producing a sufficient quota to earn a profit, though. Fishermen numbers hovered around 500 in the mid 1990s. Today Hong Kong fishermen number around 300, says Tobi Lau, a program officer with the Hong Kong chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature. Many lack the means to survive the competition against Chinese imports, which make up about 80 percent of fish sold in the markets, Lau says.

In 2009, the World Wide Fund for Nature finished an eco fish farming scheme, begun in 2006, to help fishermen breed species using no chemicals or genetic modifications in the process. This way they could sell natural fish to the public at a good enough price to earn a living. Participating farmers received a stipend to cover their expenses, and the aim was to get their fresh catch sold in markets, increase fishermen’s profits and encourage them to persevere despite the challenges.

Preserving Hong Kong fishing promotes the conservation of wildlife, especially migratory birds passing through the region who feed off the baby fish, or fish fry, in the water. This feeding cycle is burdensome to fishermen who have a limited supply of fish as it is, but participants who received funding agreed to allow this process and drain their ponds in winter when it is not harvest time so that the birds could also consume the crustaceans in the mud.

Fish farmer Ho Ping Kee declined to work with the World Wide Fund for Nature because, he says, fish ponds in Hong Kong are quite small compared to those in mainland China. “Let’s say we have good harvest today, then if we’re lucky, we’ll have another good one the next day." But guaranteeing a sufficient harvest is impossible. 

“China is leading the industry in a way because they’re more aggressive in improving farming methods,” Yuan says, whereas in Hong Kong “they’re doing the same thing they were doing 30 years ago. To improve in right direction we need help from the government.” The government could help promote the purchase of locally grown fish over imported kinds. 

When she can, Yuan purchases fish from Yeung Sui Leung who grows and sells fish through his company, Yeungs Marine Products, in Mai Po, a preservation area in the New Territories.

“Hong Kong can become a beautiful boutique fish farming place with lots of different interesting breeds because we have a nice preservation area but without help from the government, we can’t be doing that because the fishermen are not knowledgeable enough by themselves," Yeung says, translated by Yuan.

Yuan agrees. “We need to make fisheries and agriculture at the top of our list so we don’t have to keep importing stuff.”

Yin Yang opens Monday through Saturday from noon to 2.30pm for lunch, and from 7.00pm to 10.30pm for dinner. Prices for meals range between HK$560 to HK$680 per head and up to HK $1,200 per head for dinner, depending on the menu choice.

18 Ship Street (near E. Queen's Road), Wanchai, Hong Kong; tel. +852 2866 0868