Meeting to reflect and discuss to develop the action plan on the participatory guarantee system (PGS)

On 31st December, 2020 CFAP organised a meeting to reflect and discuss to develop the action plan on the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) with the boards after the training workshop held last 26-27 December, 2020. The meeting coordinated by CFAP’s managing director, Mr. Sok SOTHA and chaired by CFAP’s chairwoman, Mrs. An SARUN. There were 10 participants, 03 females. CFAP’s managing director Mr. Sotha had reported to the boards about the results of PGS training for smallholder farmers as members in Svay Rieng province which selected only active farmer members to participate in the training course. Mr. Sotha added that today, demands of organic products, safe products and or healthy foods have increased, therefore it is necessary to upgrade the capacity of smallholder farmers on agricultural standards to ensure that they are capable to produce good foods to feed people as needed. In the meantime, he presented some agricultural standards to the boards such as Geographical Identification (GI), Organic Agriculture (OA), Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) and the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS).

In order to have better understanding for the boards to decide over the application of the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS), Mr. Chhoem Phanna CFAP’s executive secretary made a presentation about the PGS’s training manuals shared by GRET for the boards to have further reviews for their consideration. Next, Mr. SOK Sotha made a presentation about the results of group discussion had made by farmer members on 27th December, 2020 one by one to have further reviews and discussion amongst the board members, thus to prioritize the products for sales regularly to markets with contract agreement between agricultural cooperatives/producer association and big buyers in the near future.

The meeting continued to discuss in details of the selected vegetables technically for net houses and open gardens to clarify which ones are best for net houses and which ones are best for open garden and the reasons, why? In order to ensure the qualitative products, therefore CFAP’s managing director had also presented few seeds companies in the region

For net houses: Choy Sum, Pak Choi, Mustard Green, Cherry tomato, Mushroom and Leave onion and some other as they are potential on market demands

For open field garden: Leave onion, Salad, String bean, Bitter gourd and cucumber and some other as they are potential on market demands

The boards suggested to organize other two meetings in the first quarter of 2021 to have further discussion at the producer groups’ level and at CFAP level for the conclusion and preparation of the production plans in a rotation system, thus to supply markets regularly in a year-round.