New crops are now grown by smallholder farmers in rural Cambodia!
On 20th November 2020 CFAP was invited by GRET Cambodia to participate in the exchange visit of safe vegetable/crops grown by smallholder farmers at Banteay Meanchey province. CFAP led by Mr. KEN Yaim, vice chairman in charged in treasure and accompanied by Ms. PEN Seyen, CFAP’s junior agri-business and value chain officer. Smallholder farmer groups initiated their role not only growers, but also buyers. The buyers play a role collect produces from farmer members for both whole sales to big companies and retails to clients at the provincial market and outside province such as Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. There are three new selected vegetable products i.e. cauliflower, cheery tomato and onion. Moreover, smallholder farmers also grow leaves onion for collective sales to big buyers. In average, 1 Kg of cauliflower costs 7000Riels or US$1.75 (yellow flower), 6000Riles or US$1.50 (white flower), cheery tomato costs 6000Riels US$1.50 per Kg, onion costs 2500Riels per Kg and leaves onion costs 13000Riels or US$3.25 per Kg.
Due lacks of water source and agriculture in Cambodia depend much on rainfall, therefore farmers get ground water for irrigation of their vegetable/crops. Climate change has generated irregular rain, storms and high temperature which farmers, especially smallholder farmers are difficult to adapt. To overcome these challenges, smallholder farmers needed to harvest rain for irrigation in dry season by digging household pond and preparing net house to ensure that they can grow vegetable/crops in a year-round to survive the families and sales for household incomes for daily expenses and children to go to school.
After the exchange visit, CFAP will share knowledge and experiences to farmer members at all target provinces in Cambodia to have further study on new crops/vegetable for exploring new market opportunities in the future.
CFAP is now under building the capacity of farmer members on the participatory guarantee system (PGS) and then Good Agricultural Practice and Cambodia Organic Agriculture accordingly.