Crop products and commodities

A Chinese-based investment firm has announced plans to begin construction on the first of 10 cassava processing plants next month, with a total planned investment of $150 million, according to Agriculture Minister Veng Sokhon. ...

Seeking to find new markets for Cambodia’s world-renowned Kampot pepper, the Ministry of Commerce held talks last week with Swiss dairy La Maison du Gruyere.   ...

Oxfam Cambodia and Amru Rice will launch next month a pilot programme based on blockchain and smart contract technology to improve living standards for local farmers. The project, called BlocRice, is powered by cutting-edge technologies and aims to improve farmers’ livelihoods by increasing the transparency and ...

The US sent its first shipment of food-grade soybeans to Cambodia last week, exporting a total of 14 tonnes to both Cambodia and Myanmar to be processed in the receiving countries, according to US media reports. The shipments were sent to soy milk and tofu ...

The price that Cambodian rubber latex fetches overseas dropped by 10 percent since the beginning of the year, a fall that officials attribute to an oversupply of the commodity in global markets and the sluggish growth of the international economy.​ ...

The Cambodian prime minister called yesterday on the public, private and non-profit sectors to work together in bringing down the cost of growing rice to help struggling farmers throughout the country. ...

Representatives of more than 400 families in Kratie’s Snuol district protested yesterday following the temporary detention of two fellow community members at a demonstration the day before, when locals blocked a road to demand the government find a solution to their land dispute with a ...

Cambodia and Vietnam signed an agreement earlier this month to greatly expand Cambodia’s cashew exports by 2028, but the proposed export level would require several hundred thousand hectares of additional land and there is no concrete plan yet to meet the target. ...

Following an agreement with Vietnam to boost cashew production in the kingdom, the Ministry of Agriculture has called on all provincial agricultural departments in the country to conduct studies on the areas that present the best conditions for growing the crop. On January 17, the ministry ...

Construction began yesterday on a $10 million factory in Kampong Speu province to process fresh fruit for international export, a first for Cambodia, though Agriculture Ministry officials could not confirm it would meet international standards yesterday. ...

New proposed rules from the European Union restricting the import of palm oil would likely affect Cambodia’s nascent palm oil sector, but the country’s main exporter is hoping that demand from India and China will cushion the blow. ...

Cambodia’s mango shipments have been routinely blocked before making it to the international market, with the Ministry of Agriculture claiming the mangoes are not of a high enough quality to meet the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) requirements necessary to ship outside of the Kingdom. ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Vietnam Cashew Association this week signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that aims to bolster the production of cashews nuts in Cambodia to reach 1 million tonnes a year. The MoU was signed by Minister of ...

The total amount of rubber exported by Cambodia surged 30 percent last year, but widespread rubber smuggling on the Vietnamese border crippled potential profits from the booming industry. ...

China-based Digital Agriculture Exchange has revealed plans to build an agricultural research centre in the kingdom to improve production and packaging standards of local fruit and vegetables. Officially dubbed a “multifunctional centre”, its aim is to up quality standards to make Cambodian produce more desirable abroad, ...

Local farmers believe they won’t be able to produce enough salt this year to meet market demands, with weather conditions in the country being less than favourable, the president of the national salt association said yesterday. ...

Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon met on Monday with visiting US professors W. Ronnie Coffman and Max J. Pfeffer from Cornell University to discuss cooperation in a new project whose purpose is to yield disease-resilient, high yielding cassava. ...

A delegation of some of China’s biggest companies in the food-processing industry is scouring the local market for investment opportunities in the agriculture sector. Headed by He Jianxiang, the deputy director-general of the Bureau of Product Processing at China’s Ministry of Agriculture, the delegation met ...

The European Commission has announced it is investigating the potential laundering of Chinese shipments of citric acid through Cambodia, allowing Chinese manufacturers to flout export restrictions. The European Commission (EC) imposed duties on Chinese citric acid in early 2015 after determining that the chemical was being ...

Cofco, China’s largest food processor, manufacturer and trader, will set up a working group in the kingdom to explore the possibilities available in the local agricultural market, including expanding the number of products it imports from Cambodia and investing in local infrastructure. ...

Socfin Cambodia, the local branch of a Europe-based international rubber producing company that currently operates a 7,500-hectare rubber plantation in Mondulkiri, has announced plans to open the doors to its first rubber factory next April, with an initial investment of $5.7 million, a company executive ...

Despite a 31 percent increase in Cambodian rubber exports during the first 11 months of this year, the Ministry of Agriculture is failing to recoup on expenses it has spent sending expert technicians into the field in order to help boost production. ...

Vietnam, a major buyer of the Cambodian cashew nut, has unveiled a plan to purchase cashews in even greater volumes during next year’s harvest season, giving hope to farmers who rely on selling their crops at good prices from February through May. ...

Vietnamese conglomerate Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) has shipped a total of over 9,000 tonnes of Cambodian bananas destined for the Chinese market since the firm first started exporting in July, a company representative said. ...