January 13, 2009
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has departed for oil-rich Kuwait in his first-ever visit to the Middle East, aimed at expanding business and trade ties.
Hun Sen was accompanied by a number of high-ranking government officials and business people as he left on the four-day trip on a plane provided by Kuwait.
“This visit will lead to the development in the future between Cambodia and Kuwait, and between Cambodia and other countries in the Middle East,” Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told reporters.
During the visit, officials are scheduled to sign agreements on Kuwaiti technical aid to build a hydro-power plant, irrigation systems and roads in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, the minister said.
Officials will also agree to direct flights between the two nations to boost tourism, he said. Hor Namhong, who is accompanying Hun Sen, said the premier would also hold discussions about rice, trade exchange and investments.
Kuwaiti premier Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Sabah visited Cambodia and inked trade deals last August, while Phnom Penh is also looking into land-lease agreements with Kuwait.
Kuwait granted Cambodia a 546-million-dollar agricultural loan in August in return for crop production. Impoverished Cambodia has climbed back from decades of civil unrest to emerge as one of the region’s most vibrant economies, attracting increasing foreign investment.
Cambodian officials have also said they hope Middle East governments will help train local experts on the petroleum industry, which is starting to take root after the discovery of offshore deposits.
January 14, 2009
PHNOM PENH, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) — Cambodia’s exports of rice will increase by over 1 million tons in 2009 over the 2 million tons or so in 2008, English-language newspaper the Cambodia Daily on Monday quoted Premier Hun Sen as saying.
Total rice production for the 2008 to 2009 harvest will reach 7million tons and over the next few years, rice exports will reach 3 to 4 tons annually, he was quoted as saying.
More irrigation and education of farmers are needed to continue expanding rice exports, he added.
“Cambodia has the ability to compete and push farmers to plant more rice,” he said, adding that Thailand and Vietnam collectively export 10 million tons of rice per year.
Meanwhile, Cambodian Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Chan Sarun on Sunday said that by 2015, rice exports of Cambodia could reach 8 million tons.
January 12, 2009
October 8, 2008
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The Asian Development Bank announced Wednesday $35 million in emergency food aid to ease the burden of soaring food prices among some of Cambodia’s poorest people.
The assistance will provide free rice, seed and fertilizer to 500,000 Cambodians, the poorest of the poor among the country’s 14 million people, the bank said.
The recipients include slum residents in the capital, Phnom Penh, and farmers in seven provinces around the country’s Tonle Sap lake.
“When the food price inflation spike came, these communities were already in a fragile state. It drove them more sharply over the edge into food poverty,” said Arjun Goswami, the bank’s country director.
The program will run through September 2011.
Over the past year rice prices in Cambodia have doubled, the ADB said in a statement. It added that the price of meat and fish has risen 30 to 50 percent, and farmers have been hit hard by an almost tripling in fertilizer prices.
About one-in-three Cambodians live below the national poverty line of just 45 cents a day.
Mahfuz Ahmed, the bank official in charge of the food project, said that of Cambodia’s 14 million people, about 2.6 million sometimes go hungry and suffer from malnutrition.
The bank said half the aid will be in grant form and the other half is a loan carrying an interest rate of 1 percent per year.
The project will also provide free breakfasts and take-home rations for poor children in primary schools.
Cambodian economic growth could also drop to around 6.5 percent this year due to the impact of high food prices, Goswami said.
The government has projected a growth rate of 7.2 percent.
“It is clearly slowing for Cambodia,” Goswami said. “We will need to see how far the economy can diversify and be resilient to these pressures that are coming on it.”
October 8, 2008
The Phnom Penh Post – September 30, 2008
Written by Khouth Sophakchakrya
CEDAC says the plan would see more than 230 tonnes of organic rice exported, boosting incomes of rural farmers in Cambodia
Organic rice is an increasingly popular alternative for farmers. (Photo: AP)
THE Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC) will export more than 230 tonnes of organic milled rice to Germany and America, Yang Saing Koma, president of CEDAC, told the Post on Thursday.
The shipments would include 200 tonnes to Germany for Rickmers Rice in November and another 30 tonnes to America for the Lotus Food Co early next year.
“We now have more than 600 tonnes of organic milled rice to sell locally and to export to Germany and the United States,” Yang Saing Koma Koma said.
This year, CEDAC plans to buy about 2,000 tonnes of organic paddy rice, up from 1,200 tonnes it bought last year.
“We hope farmers will increase their production of organic paddy rice with market demand,” Yang Saing Koma Koma said, adding: “The price we provide to farmers is always 10 to 20 percent higher than the market price.”
Lim Virak, 45, a farmer in Prek Treng village in Prey Veng province said that in his village, organic paddy rice sold to other vendors at $250 per tonne, but his family and other villagers who sold to CEDAC received $300 per tonne.
“We expect CEDAC to provide a price that is about 20 percent higher than the market price,” Lim Virak said.
He said that he and other villagers have grown organic paddy rice since 2004, after CEDAC taught them organic farming techniques.
“I am very happy if farmers produce organic rice crops,” Phou Puy, president of the Rice Miller Association said.
“The organic husk rice is easier to sell, and sells at a higher price than husk rice that has been exposed to chemicals.”
October 1, 2008
The Phnom Penh Post – September 05, 2008
Written by Cheang Sokha
Funds are part of a yearlong program to alleviate poverty and provide greater access to educational and vocational television programming
Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Long Visalo and Japansese Ambassador Katsuhiro Shinohara. (HENG CHIVOAN)
THE Japanese government on Thursday signed an agreement with Cambodian officials to provide ¥369 million (US$3.4 million) in development aid for improvements in food production and television programming in the Kingdom.
The one-year project was signed by Long Visalo, secretary of state for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Japanese Ambassador Katsuhiro Shinohara.
Some ¥330 million will be given to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to bolster agricultural production, while ¥39 million will fund new television programming for Cambodia’s TVK network.
Long Visalo said to date, Japan has given ¥3.45 billion for agricultural development projects.
“This project will provide fertiliser to poor farmers,” he said after the signing ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Shinohara said the funding aims to increase the production of rice, maize and cassava by supplying farmers with fertiliser.
“Poverty reduction remains a big challenge in Cambodia, especially in the rural areas, where more than 90 percent of people are living,” he said. “It is crucial to develop the agriculture sector in order to generate income for poor farmers.”
Nhean Chok, an assistant to Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun, said the government was targeting poor rural families in order to alleviate poverty by increasing crop production.
“In this project we will receive 2,200 tonnes of fertiliser, and each family will receive 50 kilograms.”
Shinohara said Japan will also provide access to more than 400 television channels from their national broadcasting corporation NHK, which will include educational, documentary, cultural and technology programming.
September 8, 2008
The Phnom Penh Post – September 05, 2008
Proposed 10 dams will boost irrigation, generate electricity
THE Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology has begun preliminary studies for the building of a series of dams across four provinces.
“We are planning to build more than 10 dams and related irrigation systems in four northwestern provinces to ensure rice production during both the rainy and dry seasons,” Veng Sakhon, secretary of state for the ministry, told the Post this week.
The proposed dams would provide the country with a more modern irrigation system as well as generate electricity for rural communities, he said.
However, other dam projects have come under fire for their impact on the environment and lack of transparency.
The ministry aims to build four dams in Pursat province that would supply irrigation to more than 35,000 hectares of land and generate as much as 300 megawatts of power for local communities. Other proposed dam sites include locations in Battambang, Kampong Chhnang and Banteay Meanchey provinces, and the ministry is consulting with engineers from China and South Korea, Veng Sakhon said.
He added that the government must look outside the country for the money needed to complete the ambitious project.
“We will need more than US$4 billion,” he said, adding that the ministry is still in the preliminary stages of planning the massive projects.
Chan Tong Yves, secretary of state for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said Cambodia must improve its irrigation systems to meet greater agricultural and export demands. “We have suffered drought in some areas, but nothing serious yet,” he said.
Meas Sotheavy, head of the statistics office at the ministry’s Planning and Statistics Department, said only a relatively small portion of Cambodia’s rice fields is irrigated.
“Now, only about 30 percent of rice paddies are connected to irrigation systems. We’d like to get that number to 40 percent by the end of this year,” she said.
September 8, 2008
The Phnom Penh Post – September 01, 2008
Written by Sebastian Stangio and Vong Sokheng
An emergency relief effort is under way to boost agricultural production and head off food shortages resulting from drought, pests
LORD OF THE PESTS
Since crossing over from Vietnam, the so-called brown plant hopper (nilaparvata lugens) has wreaked havoc on Cambodia’s rice fields. Around 10,000 hectares of rice paddies were lost to the pests last year, said CEDAC President Yaing Sang Koma.
THE United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will distribute US$200,000 worth of seed and fertiliser in a bid to raise domestic agricultural production and ease food costs, it has announced.
In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (MAFF), the FAO plans to distribute 56 tonnes of rice seed and 140 tonnes of fertilisers to poor households in Takeo province as part of its Initiative on Soaring Food Prices project.
“Soaring food prices have hit this country particularly hard…. The price of foods and other commodities are now well beyond the reach of consumers,” said Minister Chan Sarun and FAO country representative Omar Salah Ahmed in a joint statement Thursday.
Emergency relief
Srun Sokhom, deputy director of agronomy and agricultural land improvement at MAFF, said that 2,800 rural families in Treang, Bati and Samraong districts would receive emergency rice seeds in order to alleviate the effects of drought and pests on the year’s remaining harvests.
“We know that the impact of brown plant hoppers and drought was huge, so we are contributing emergency seed to vulnerable farmers,” he said.
The FAO’s distributions are intended to boost production during the current season and in the dry season harvest next year.
The relief package also includes 70 tonnes each of the petroleum-based fertilisers diammonium phosphate and urea, which due to spiralling global oil costs are beyond the reach of many Cambodian farmers.
Yaing Sang Koma, president of agricultural NGO CEDAC, said he did not oppose the FAO program, but added that increasing agricultural output would require longer-term solutions.
“I think they should also combine this with other activities and let farmers know that chemical fertiliser is not enough to increase harvests,” he said, adding that education was the key to long-term development. “The program should be combined with education about rice-planting techniques,” he said.
But Srun Sokhom said Takeo was hit particularly hard by drought and pests, adding that short-term relief was vital to avoid later food shortages. “In the three districts, we estimated 8,000 hectares of rice paddy were affected by drought and brown plant hoppers,” he said.
“If we cannot help the farmers soon, individual households will face increasing food insecurity in the coming year.”
September 2, 2008
PHNOM PENH, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Cambodia and UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are launching an emergency project through its Technical Cooperation Program (TCP) in Cambodia to help impoverished farmers boost agricultural production, said a joint press release received here Saturday.
The project is part of the FAO Initiative on Soaring Food Prices (ISFP) started in December 2007 and aims to boost the local food supply to soften the blow of soaring food prices, it said.
The FAO is focusing on immediate activities during this rainy season from July 2008 to Sept. 2008 and within the dry season from Nov. 2008 until Jan. 2009, so that by the next harvests there will be more food available locally at lower prices, it said.
In addition, the project is providing fertilizers, which are petroleum-based and thus out of reach of poor farmers as oil prices break new records every day, it said.
As the latest step of the project, a rice seed distribution ceremony to vulnerable farmers was held on Aug. 28 at Bati district, Takeo province, with the attendance of Chan Sarun, Cambodian Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, as well as Omar Salah Ahmed, FAO Representative in Cambodia, said the press release.
For the medium and long term plan, the FAO aims at a more comprehensive assistance program towards agricultural development by focusing on increased productivities, irrigation and improving the storage, it added.
September 1, 2008
Wed, 27 Aug 2008
DPA
Phnom Penh – A delegation from the Brunei Finance Ministry met with Cambodian Finance Minister Keat Chhon to discuss importing Cambodian rice and seed, local media reported Wednesday. The delegation, headed by Brunei Finance Ministry Permanent Secretary Dato Paduka Haj Ali Apong, had not reached any firm agreements on the amount of rice and seed Brunei would require or how soon, but that discussions went well, according to Khmer-language Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper.
The delegation is also scheduled to meet the Cambodian commerce and agriculture ministers as well as the Rural Development Bank and the Rice Millers Association of Cambodia, the paper said.
It did not state a scheduled duration for the visit.
Cambodia has said it aims to be a major rice exporter in the region, matching the current leader Thailand by 2015, and in recent months has negotiated with African nations, including Guinea, as well as Gulf states Kuwait and Qatar.
Brunei is a fellow of Cambodia in the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations and has already provided advice on tapping potential offshore oil reserves.
Sultan of Brunei Haji Hassanal Bolkiah visited Cambodia in April last year and the two countries have strong bilateral ties.
August 28, 2008
