When Professor Lam Hon-ming returned to Hong Kong after completing postdoctoral work in the United States in 1997, he was fixated on one question: how can science help feed the country and the world?

He found that soybeans offered part of the answer. In addition to its nutritional value, the crop can fix nitrogen levels in the soil, reducing reliance on chemical fertiliser, and some varieties can be bred to tolerate drought and salinity.

Lam went on to spend almost three decades studying soybean genetics and developing varieties suited to marginal land.

“I wanted to work in agricultural research because it is important for everyone, although relatively few people were doing it,” said Lam, the director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology.

“Coming from a low-income family in Hong Kong myself, I understood how important access to food and opportunities can be for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.”His research has since moved well beyond the laboratory.

Lam and his collaborators published work in the scientific journal Nature Genetics in 2010 examining genetic diversity across wild and cultivated soybean genomes.

Four years later, his team reported a gene associated with salt tolerance in wild soybean in another publication, Nature Communications.

Ordinary soybeans fail where salt has built up in the soil. Irrigation and dry weather leave that salt behind, and large stretches of farmland in northwestern mainland China cannot support a normal crop.

That science has been applied to breeding non-genetically modified soybean varieties that can cope with difficult growing conditions.

Several varieties produced with mainland partners were approved for cultivation, including in Gansu province. From 2016 to 2024, the cumulative area planted with three varieties exceeded 100,000 hectares (247,105 acres).

“To me, it shows what Hong Kong science can contribute to mainland agriculture,” said Lam.

Lam’s soybean work received a Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury at the 50th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva in 2025.

“You cannot simply come in and tell farmers what to do,” he said. “You have to work with them, understand what they need and find something that works locally.”That approach has also taken his research overseas, with collaborators in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Cambodia, as well as projects and discussions elsewhere in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

“Every place has different soil, temperatures and growing seasons,” Lam said. “Varieties have to be selected for local conditions and sometimes tested for two or three seasons before anyone can be sure they will work.”Lam is quick to share the credit. He recalls his wife supporting him when he used his own salary for early field trials. The Lo Kwee Seong Foundation and Lee Hysan Foundation also supported his field work, and the two organisations generally contribute to science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) education.

More recently, colleagues and private investors have backed projects over the longer timelines common in agriculture.

His work has earned him a place as a finalist in the innovation category of the Spirit of Hong Kong Awards, co-organised by Sino Group and the South China Morning Post.

Lam is now working to ensure years of research can continue beyond academic papers and his own career, including through commercial applications in agriculture and food.

“When I was younger, I always wanted to be the one charging ahead,” he said. “Now I want to create the conditions for others to take the work forward. If the next generation can carry it further than I did, that is enough for me.”