Cambodian milled rice exports are gradually lessening their dependency on a single market by expanding their shipping destination in Asia, a sign insiders say is good news for the industry.
Kim Savuth, president of the Federation of Cambodian Rice Exporters, told the Post yesterday that milled rice exports to European countries, Cambodia’s traditional market, is still increasing, but its percentage share is gradually decreasing. He said the trend of exports to Asian market is on the rise. …
In the first four months of this year, Cambodia exports to Malaysia, Thailand and China, reached 40,500 tonnes, 34 per cent Cambodia’s total overseas exports, according to figures from the secretariat of the One Window Service for rice exports.
The data show that those three countries are among the top five importers that bring in rice from Cambodia, with France and Poland at numbers one and two. …
Officials are seeking expert firms to implement projects on so-called contract farming and the enhancement of the involvement of farmers’ organisations in paddy collecting and processing, officials said.
Contract farming is an agreement on agricultural production carried out between a farmer and buyers, which establishes conditions for the production and marketing of a farm product or products. …
Mao Thora, secretary of state for the Ministry of Commerce, said Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) provided €6 million ($7.7 million) for projects including contract farming and providing loans. …
Accessing low-interest loans for rice cultivation is a challenge because the industry in Cambodia is dependant upon rainfall and not irrigation and is thus more risky, experts said last week.
In a meeting on the private sector development in the rice sector, Lim Heng, vice president of the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, suggested that the government should supply more irrigation systems for better rice output.
“If we do not have enough water systems and still depend on the rainfall, the risk can be very high,” Lim Heng told participants in the meeting. “Therefore financial institutions will be hesitant to give us loans as they think it is too risky. …
Research over the past two years conducted by Srey Chanthy, an independent agricultural analyst, shows that at least $1 billion per year is needed by farmers to strengthen production. …
Chief Cambodia Holding, a Hong Kong-based brokerage firm, started its operations in Phnom Penh yesterday. The company aims to strengthen Cambodian agricultural products, a company official said.
The company reserved $100 million investment capital to connect domestic agricultural producers to the market, Director of Chief Cambodia Holding Te Tea Sieng said. …
Agricultural experts say there are several obstacles hindering growth in the agricultural sector: limited budgets, lack of knowledge about how to improve yields’ quality, and how to access markets. …
Cambodian lawmakers have passed a new law on agriculture, but critics say the law does not go far enough to protect the country’s farmers.
The law passed on Thursday evening, but not before debate at the National Assembly. …
During the debate opposition representatives called on the Cambodian government to stop providing land concessions to private companies—either for economic or “social” aims. So-called social land concessions are supposed to go toward the poor. But opposition lawmakers warn that they too can be abused by private companies. …
[Opposition Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker] Yim Sovann also said the government should create a fund of $100 million to protect rice farmers against price fluctuations. That money could come from revenues on casino tariffs, he said. …
Chan Sarun, a CPP government representative, told the Assembly that a $100-million fund is not possible. And he said the government has already banned land concessions, since May 2012. Some 50,000 hectares have been saved from private development since the ban, he said.
In fact, watchdog and rights groups have said many concession deals have continued, despite an announced ban by Prime Minister Hun Sen in May 2012.
While significant obstacles remain, the success of the rice sector is a potentially crucial driver in Cambodia’s prosperous and equitable development. …
Cambodia announced two major bilateral trade agreements recently, with the Philippines and Thailand, that are expected to further expand the country’s rice export sector. …
Agriculture, led by rice farming, contributes to roughly a third of the country’s GDP and has immense potential for strengthening Cambodia’s economic growth, accelerating poverty reduction, and improving the living standard of its citizens. As part of this agenda, in 2010, the RGC adopted a new Policy Paper on Paddy Production and Rice Export, better known as the Rice Policy, to promote diversification of Cambodia’s economic sectors by catalyzing growth in paddy rice production and milled rice export to match the growth seen in the garment and service sectors. …
If Cambodia’s rice export sector were to reach its full potential, it could produce 3 million tons of milled rice, with the total export value amounting to $2.1 billion (approximately 20% of the GDP) and an estimated additional $600 million (approximately 5% of the GDP) to the national economy. It would also boost employment and income for agricultural farmers who make up more than 70 percent of the population living in rural areas. …
Poor transport and infrastructure such as roads, railways, warehouses, and handling equipment also increase costs for farmers. …
The lack of handling equipment in one of the main ports, the Sihanoukville Port, is also a major constraint for the export of large quantities of milled rice. …
As a relatively new player in the milled rice market, Cambodia faces a steep learning curve. However, with a surplus of 3.5 million tons of paddy rice (equivalent to 2 million tons of milled rice), Cambodia has the potential to soon be among the top five milled rice exporters in the world.
Major financial institutions show more trust in providing loans to the agricultural sector, evidenced by increasing agricultural loan disbursement, thanks to potential growth in the sector and better preparation of financial report among borrowers, according to industry insiders.
Acleda Bank, Cambodia’s largest domestically owned bank, has been increasing its percentage share of its loan portfolio into agriculture from 15 per cent two years ago to 19 per cent at the end of March.
While the bank’s total loan portfolio reached about $1.35 billion at the end of March this year, In Channy, the bank’s president and chief executive said $254 million was given to agricultural loans, which represents about 19 per cent of total lending. …
Acleda Bank, Cambodia’s largest domestically owned bank, has been increasing its percentage share of its loan portfolio into agriculture from 15 per cent two years ago to 19 per cent at the end of March. …
Kim Savuth, the president of the Federation of Cambodian Rice Exporters agreed that accessing loans from banks and MFIs is easier compared to some previous years.
Nevertheless, he said farmers still suffer because of higher interest rates offered by micro lenders, while strict requirements from banks were still a barrier for rice millers.
Milled rice exports have seen dramatic growth this year as the sector begins to take advantage of duty-free exports to European countries, an official and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.
Thon Virak, director of state-owned rice exporter Green Trade, said Tuesday that in the year up to the end of April, 118,500 tons of milled rice had been exported from Cambodia.
“It increased by about 43 percent compared with the same period [last year],” Mr. Virak said.
Cambodia traditionally exports a large proportion of its rice crop as unprocessed paddy to Thailand and Vietnam, where it is milled and often re-exported. The government has targeted an increase to 1 million tons a year-compared with only about 200,000 tons last year-by 2015, and investment in rice mills has been stepped up to meet the goal. …
“The agriculture sector today is still playing significant role in promoting local production growth, job creation, and contributing to the poverty reduction of the people. At the same time, the agriculture sector will continue the basic role for economic growth and socio-economic development in Cambodia in the coming decades although Cambodia has diversified her economy, including industrialization”, Samdech Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia said last week. …
“The growth in agricultural sector is not only improving our economy but also transforming the red dry land to become the green area in all seasons, as well as allowing our youths in rural area to be employed, reducing migration, and improving their livelihood.”
According to the report made by H.E Chan Sarun, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the agriculture sector has grown in average about 4.3% in 2012, in which the rice production was about 3 million hectares, and the land of 2.98 million hectares could be cultivated, and the average yield per year in both dry and rainy seasons is 3.117 tons per hectares. …
“We have also expected that this poverty rate will further decline to under 19% in 2013. In the future, we will try our best to drag down the poverty rate until the elimination of the poverty through the continued development of agriculture and economic diversification.” …
To impose no land tax is like helping them right in the field. For example, they need to spend one or two hundred thousand Riel per hectare as tax. “When we do not charge tax from them, they could use the money for something else, like purchasing a bicycle for their kids or other agricultural utensils.” …
BANGKOK: Demand for farmland may strip the Greater Mekong region of a third of its remaining forest cover over the next two decades without swift government action, a leading conservation group warned Thursday.
Forests are being cleared for commodities such as rubber and rice while illegal logging is decimating many protected zones, WWF said in a report, adding a contentious dam on Mekong river will deepen already severe ecosystem damage.
“The Greater Mekong is at a crossroads,” said Peter Cutter of the WFF, adding Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar lost between 22-24 percent of their forests from 1973 — the first point of available data — to 2009, while 43 percent of woodland was stripped from Thailand and Vietnam. …
The US$3.8 billion hydroelectric project, which is due to be completed in around five years, has sharply divided the four Mekong nations — Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. …
Thailand will forge closer ties with Cambodia and other neighbouring countries to increase competency in rice trading and boost the bargaining power of Asean countries by setting up a rice-trading zone soon.
Also, Thailand will expand crop cooperation to cassava to raise farm incomes in the region. …
Thailand will help Cambodia promote its cassava under the same concept of rice trading. It will help encourage more trading of cereals, such as cassava and maize, by promoting contract farming to ensure stable incomes for farmers.
The JTC will discuss a strategy to promote bilateral trade with an emphasis on cross-border shipments, which account for 65 per cent of two-way trade value. …
Last year, two-way trade was valued at US$4.03 billion (Bt116 billion), or 0.84 per cent of Thailand’s total trade. Exports to Cambodia were worth $3.78 billion against only $249.5 million for imports from that country. …
An unusual report shows that organic rice buyers in the U.S. are getting a large percentage of their rice from Cambodia.
The Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC) exported 114 tonnes of organic jasmine rice to the U.S. in the first quarter of this year, a 30 per cent increase compared with the same period last year, reports the Phnom Penh Post. …
During the first three months, CEDAC exported 59 tonnes of organic jasmine brown rice and 55 tonnes organic jasmine white rice to the US.
Experts suggest that Cambodia has the potential to become an important organic rice producing country in Southeast Asia. Srey Chanthy, an independent agricultural analyst, told the Post that compared with most Asian countries, Cambodian farmers use relatively few chemicals on their fields. …
Cambodia and Colombia on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the establishment of a political consultation mechanism in order to strengthen the bilateral relations and cooperation.
The deal was inked between Ouch Borith, Secretary of State of Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Patti Londono, visiting Vice Minister of Multilateral Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia. …
In a meeting before the signing ceremony, Ouch Borith suggested that Cambodia and Colombia strengthen bilateral cooperation in tourism and agriculture, especially rice.
Patti said Colombia is pleased to cooperate with Cambodia in tourism sector, saying that Colombia will send a group of Spanish speaking trainers to Cambodia in order to train Cambodian tourist guides in the second half of this year. …
Just recently, the Philippines government signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on rice trade with the Kingdom of Cambodia to pave the way for the National Food Authority (NFA) to import rice from that country for the next two years.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) revealed that the MOA between the two governments was signed last April 4 by Philippine Ambassador to Cambodia Noe Wong and Cambodian Senior Minister and Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh. …
The MOA opens the way for the NFA to import rice from Cambodia through Green Trade, a Cambodian public enterprise. …
Cambodia’s success in rice farming can be attributed in large part to the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), founded by Yang Saing Koma in 1997.
A key aspect of CEDAC’s success is the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), which Koma introduced to just a handful of farmers in 2000. Simply put, SRI is effective plant-water-soil management that combines all farming good practices. …
Cambodia recorded a sharp rise in milled rice export in the first three months of 2012 thanks to increasing international market demand and more investment in post- harvest technologies, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Friday.
A commerce report showed that the country exported 95,230 tons of milled rice during the January-March period this year, up 148 percent from 38,400 tons in the same period of last year. …
The Ministry of Agriculture announced in January that the country produced 9.31 million tons of paddy rice last year. Of that, around 3 million tons of milled rice is for export this year.
For the whole year of 2012, Cambodia exported 205,717 tons of milled rice, up only 2 percent year-on-year. …
Mondolkiri and Kompong Thom provinces could suffer some of the most extreme effects of climate change in the Lower Mekong Basin region, such as a high incidence of flash floods and droughts by 2050, according to a new study.
Analyzing temperature and rainfall from 84 provinces in the Mekong region-which includes Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam- the study identifies Mondolkiri as a “primary priority hotspot” for vulnerability for climate change. …
“Reduced rice and cassava yields are a threat to food security and health, as well as placing more pressure on exploitation of [non-timber forest products] for food. Reduced cassava yields would also reduce livestock feed availability,” the study found.
Kompong Thom will experience an 18 percent increase in precipitation during the wet season, while the maximum temperatures will increase by 4 degrees. …
To counteract these effects the government and the affected communities should look into diversifying their crops, such as planting heat-tolerant or drought tolerant varieties, the study says.
The Can Tho city and Cambodian province of Battambang have signed a memorandum of understanding on economic co-operation that covers commerce, investment, and tourism.
The two sides will create favourable conditions for businesses from the two localities to co-operate in areas like processing of farm produce, goods distribution, investing in processing plants for farm and aquaculture produce, animal husbandry, and tourism. …
Several Can Tho businesses are seeking opportunities to co-operate with their Battambang counterparts to purchase and process paddy and rice for export.
Located in the north-west of Cambodia nearly 300km from the capital Phnom Penh, Battambang has a population of over 1 million of whom 81 per cent are farmers. The province harvests 2 million tonnes of rice a year and has innumerable ponds and lakes suitable for aquaculture. …
Climate change will have a significant effect on major industrial and food crops in the Lower Mekong basin countries of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, says a new study.
The study, conducted by the Mekong Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change Project for the U.S. Agency for International Development, marks the first step of the project’s aim to help communities in the four countries to develop local climate change adaptation assessments and action plans.
Considered one of the most fertile areas of Southeast Asia, the Mekong basin is known for its production of rice and maize. About 70 percent of the basin’s population of 60 million people earns a living as farmers and fishers. …
Aside from the looming danger of climate change, plans to build a series of mega-dams across the river to generate electricity also pose a threat to the Mekong countries, experts say. …
“By blocking the transport of sediment, the dams will contribute to even greater erosion in the fertile Mekong Delta, which is already threatened by increasing saltwater intrusion as a result of rising sea levels,” Aviva Imhof, [International Rivers] group’s campaigns director told Voice of America.
The Department of Foreign Trade plans to set up a “rice trade zone” project in the East to process Cambodian rice for export to other countries.
Tikhumporn Natvaratat, deputy director-general of the department, said his organisation plans to implement the project in Chanthaburi, Trat, Sa Kaeo and Chachoengsao provinces. …
The department will also decide on the types of rice that Thailand would import from Cambodia to process for export to other countries, with paddy and brown rice among the options being considered.
“If Thailand exports the rice to the European Union, it may benefit from the privileges under the Generalised System of Preferences that the EU offers to Cambodia because the origin of the rice is Cambodia,” Mr. Tikhumporn said. …
[Mr. Tikhumporn] said Thailand might initially import 100-1,000 tonnes of rice from Cambodia for the export project. …
Around half of Cambodia’s tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia. The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity and a refuge for 11 globally-threatened bird species, including the Bengal Florican. They are also a vital fishing, grazing, and traditional rice farming resource for around 1.1 million people. …
The grassland area spanned 3349 km² in 1995, but by 2005 it had been reduced to just 1817 km² – a loss of 46 per cent.
Despite conservation efforts in some areas, it has continued to shrink rapidly since, with a further 19 per cent lost in four years (2005-2009) from the key remaining grassland area in the southeast of the Tonle Sap floodplain.
Factors include intensive commercial rice farming with construction of irrigation channels, which is often illegal. Some areas have also been lost to scrubland where traditional, low-intensity agricultural activity has been abandoned. …
