Agriculture
Agricultural commodities, processing and products
Rubber firm tells villagers to bounce
Villagers embroiled in a longstanding land dispute with a Chinese rubber company in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district received an official eviction notice last week from local authorities who failed to promise compensation, community representatives told the Post yesterday. More than 100 families will have to move so Swift Rubber ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rubber-firm-tells-villagers-bounce
Lawyers Against ‘Blood Sugar’ Launch Fundraising Campaign
A US-based group of lawyers has launched an online campaign to raise funding to support a lawsuit against a UK company that bought sugar from a Cambodian plantations linked to human rights abuses. The campaign is being undertaken by the International Senior Lawyers Project, which is ...
Kimseng Men
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/lawyer-against-blood-sugar-launch-funraising-campaign/1800116.html
Pepsi sugar draws ire
Investors in drinks giant PepsiCo have filed a shareholders resolution urging the company to account for alleged land-rights violations in Cambodia. The 14 shareholders – including Oxfam – are increasing the pressure on PepsiCo following Coca-Cola’s pledge earlier this month of “zero tolerance” towards land grabs. An ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/pepsi-sugar-draws-ire
Families Protest Eviction by Chinese Company
Forty-two families from Preah Vihear province’s Chheb district on Sunday held a demonstration to protest their pending eviction in favor of a Chinese company that plans to establish a sugarcane plantation on the land the families have occupied for almost three years. Local authorities have told ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-protest-eviction-by-chinese-company-47808/
Cambodian jasmine rice wins world’s best
Cambodian Jasmine rice wins the award for world’s best rice at the 2013 Rice Traders World Rice Conference held in Hong Kong. This is the second time that Cambodian rice had been awarded world’s best rice, the first award came last year in Bali, Indonesia. ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=YmE1ZGZiNjczNDM
Salt farmers fear little output due to rainfall
As salt farmers in Kep and Kampot provinces prepare for the upcoming salt season, they have expressed concerns that unstable weather conditions could cause a supply shortage on the growing domestic market. Salt production in Cambodia usually starts in early January and ends in late ...
Chan Muy Hong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/salt-farmers-fear-little-output-due-rainfall
Thai Sugar Firm Meets With Koh Kong Evictees
Koh Kong Sugar has offered to settle its yearslong dispute with Cambodian families who accuse its plantations of stealing their land, but the farmers remain wary of being able to secure a fair deal. The firm, a subsidiary of Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Limited (KSL), ...
Zsombor Peter and Chhorn Chansy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/thai-sugar-firm-meets-with-koh-kong-evictees-46811/
Coca-Cola To Probe Seven-Year-Old Cambodian Land Grab Case
Declaring that it has “zero tolerance” towards land grabbing, Coca-Cola has agreed to investigate a long running case in Cambodia where villagers are seeking court action against a company accused of seizing their land to make way for plantations linked to the supply of sugar ...
Eurasia Review News Staff
http://www.eurasiareview.com/09112013-coca-cola-probe-seven-year-old-cambodian-land-grab-case/
Cambodia's rubber export surges 46 pct in 10 months
Cambodia has seen a 46 percent rise in dry rubber export in the first ten months of 2013 thanks to rising global demand, said the report of the Commerce Ministry on Friday. The country exported 62,915 tons of dry rubber during the January-October period this year, ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2013-11/08/c_132870615.htm
Home Farming, No Compensation to Blame for H5N1 Rate
Cambodia has been the country regionally worst affected by bird flu in humans this year—with 23 cases compared to just two in Vietnam and none in Thailand—largely due to the difference in poultry farming, an official with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/home-farming-no-compensation-to-blame-for-h5n1-rate-46685/
Cambodia sees sharp rise in rice export in 10 months
Cambodia exported 294,150 tonnes of milled rice in the first 10 months of the year, a 101 percent rise from 146,200 tonnes over the same period last year, a government data showed Tuesday. The country’s milled rice has been sold to 57 countries and regions around ...
Xinhua
http://www.asean-china-center.org/english/2013-11/06/c_132864582.htm
Database will assist farmers
Rural farmers will soon be able to access farming information via experts under an initiative of the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD). The project, with Bangladesh-based Grameen-Intel, encourages local entrepreneurs to first reach out to small farmers and collect data about crops. This is then ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/database-will-assist-farmers
Cambodian flood destroys 4.4 pct of rice paddies this year: official
Recent Mekong River flash floods have entirely damaged 113,260 hectares of rice paddies, or 4.4 percent of the total rice-planted area of 2.56 million hectares, according to an agricultural report Tuesday. “The floods had affected 369,346 hectares of rice paddies. Of the figures, 113,260 hectares ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-10/29/c_132840685.htm
Cambodian PM urges Chinese to invest in agricultural processing plants
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday urged Chinese companies to focus their investments in processing plants for agricultural products in order to help increase the country’s productivity for exports. The premier made the suggestion during a meeting with a visiting Chinese delegation led by Wang ...
Xinhuanet News
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-10/28/c_132836976.htm
Try Pheap Bulldozers Return to Clear Land, Stopped by Protesters
About 100 villagers in Preah Vihear province’s Rovieng district on Saturday turned out in protest for the second time this week to prevent a bulldozer that belongs to well-known businessman Try Pheap from clearing their land next to his rubber plantation, local officials and residents ...
Protesters Stop Try Pheap Tractor From Clearing Land in Preah Vihear
More than 100 people on Thursday protested and stopped a bulldozer belonging to businessman Try Pheap from clearing their land next to a rubber plantation he owns in Preah Vihear’s Rovieng district, villagers and local officials said. Oeun Sitha said he was among more than 100 ...
Petition for Investigation Into Sugar Trade Gains Support
More than 55,000 people have joined an online petition set up by a pair of French nongovernment groups urging the European Union (E.U.) to immediately launch an investigation into local sugar plantations accused of illegally evicting hundreds of Cambodian families. At the center of the dispute ...
Zsombor Peter and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/petition-for-investigation-into-sugar-trade-gains-support-45704/
First mango export factory planned
Mong Reththy Group is co-investing $2 million to build a factory in Preah Sihanouk province for the packaging and export of Cambodian mangoes, the first company to formally ship the fruit overseas. Located in Koe Phos commune, the factory will cover 12 hectares of land and ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/first-mango-export-factory-planned
Man Arrested Over Murder of Rubber Farmer
A man has been arrested for his alleged role in the killing of a landowner following a dispute over a boundary at a rubber plantation in Ratanakkiri province, deputy provincial police chief Phen Dina said Tuesday. Sok Na, 48, who was arrested on Monday evening at ...
Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/man-arrested-over-murder-of-rubber-farmer-45712/
Ethnic Bunong Families Seek Solution to Communal Land Dispute
Three ethnic minority communities in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Chreada district are drafting a petition to send to provincial authorities in an attempt to resolve a land dispute in which part of their communal land has been granted to other communities and private landowners. In June, officials ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ethnic-bunong-families-seek-solution-to-communal-land-dispute-45669/
Calls for Angkor Beer Boycott Over Laos Dam Investment
Environmental groups and a local community leader in Stung Treng province have called for a nationwide boycott of the popular Angkor Beer brand to protest the beverage company’s links to a controversial hydropower dam to be built in Laos. Laos announced earlier this month that it ...
Dene-Hern Chen and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/calls-for-angkor-beer-boycott-over-laos-dam-investment-45646/
Flooding damage escalates
Flooding has affected close to 287,000 hectares of rice fields, with about 27,800 considered damaged beyond repair, according to government statistics released on Monday. The data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries reveal that rising waters have affected about 11 per cent of the ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/flooding-damage-escalates
Floods damage cassava crop
The coming cassava harvest is increasingly threatened by flooding as about 25 per cent of the crop in prime growing provinces is or has been submerged, according to authorities. Taking up more cultivated area than any other crop in Cambodia except for rice, cassava is especially ...
Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/floods-damage-cassava-crop
Debts rise along with water level
With pant legs rolled up to his knees, Hoeuy Mon trudges through a brown and green patchwork of rice fields. His four hectares are in Tkov village, Prey Veng province, about 300 metres from his home. On most of the journey, walkways enclosing each square plot ...
Hor Kimsay and Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/debts-rise-along-water-level