Crop products and commodities

The rice industry’s quest for greater quality at lower cost reached a dead end yesterday at a conference in Phnom Penh, with exporters and farmers polarised on how to achieve greater returns for the industry. The workshop, titled “Improving Rice Value Chain and Enhancing Farmers’ Livelihoods”, ...

The price of durian from Thailand has risen sharply this year, leading to shrinking profits for fruit vendors in Phnom Penh as demand from China for the spiky, pungent fruit grows more robust. On Sihanouk Boulevard, fruit vendor Heng Sovanna said that since March, the price ...

Japanese petroleum company Idemitsu Oil & Gas is considering building a biomass plant in Battambang province to use cassava to produce fuel, a Cambodia Mine Action Centre (CMAC) official says. Leng Chreang, director of mine risk education at CMAC, said the Japanese firm is one year ...

A representative of villagers involved in a land dispute in Mondolkiri province appealed to the government Tuesday to address their displacement after their shelters were destroyed by police and soldiers in a forced eviction Monday. Chan Rithy stood outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh on ...

This season’s Kampot pepper production is expected to reach 27 tonnes, up from 21 tonnes last year thanks to a larger area of harvested land. But Nguon Lay, president of the Kampot Pepper Association, said on Sunday that despite the increase, adverse weather conditions meant the ...

Cambodia had exported 213,530 tons of fresh and dry cassava in the first three months of 2014, down 13 percent compared with 245,440 tons over the same period last year, according to the figures provided by the Commerce Ministry on Sunday. However, the country saw a ...

Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture have called on farmers to cease using chemical pesticides and adopt environmentally friendly methods in an effort to increase yields and reduce damage to produce. At an agriculture workshop on biological control agents hosted yesterday by the Ministry of Agriculture, ...

The Swift Rubber Company demolished three homes in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Chum district last week without compensation, telling about 120 families to leave immediately or face the destruction of more houses, according to villagers and rights group Adhoc. ...

Cambodia’s steadily declining rubber prices have hit critically low levels that are destined to only get worse as Thailand prepares to offload huge rubber stocks, the secretary-general of the Association for Rubber Development of Cambodia said Thursday. As the price of natural rubber has paralleled a ...

The amount of land used to grow longans has doubled in the past two years, but a lack of supply-chain infrastructure is hampering farmers’ ability to get top dollar for their product, the fruit’s body says. Sreng Sreang, deputy director of the Pailin Longan Farmers’ Community ...

Nearly 200 villagers from Kratie province gathered in Phnom Penh Monday, hoping to deliver a petition to the Cambodian Senate and other government agencies in protest of a rubber company’s development there. The villagers, from Snoul district, say a Vietnamese rubber company began developing in ...

Despite a large increase in exports during the first quarter, natural rubber producers continue to see declining revenues, as world prices fall further. The latest figures from the Ministry of Commerce show natural rubber exports grew 26 per cent during the first quarter of 2014, compared ...

A World Bank-supported rubber company accused of land grabs has suspended some of its projects, as an investigation by the bank continues. The Hoang Anh Gia Lai company, which received support from the bank’s International Finance Corporation, said in a decision following an April 2 ...

Representatives of a community locked in a land dispute with a Vietnamese company in Kratie province returned home from Phnom Penh late Tuesday after failing to garner support from Prime Minister Hun Sen, while an official at the company said it had begun destroying villagers’ ...

Despite flood damage causing reduced production levels, cassava farmers in Pailin province are benefiting from an increase in the purchasing price, provincial department of agriculture officials say. “This year’s harvest dropped to 25 tonnes per hectare from 30 tonnes per hectare last season because of the ...

Vietnam’s HAGL JSC is expanding its overseas plantations and plans to harvest corn in Cambodia and Laos this year, Bloomberg News reported Monday. ...

The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MoEF) will scrap customs fees for rice exporters from May 1 in an effort to reduce production costs and boost Cambodia’s competitiveness in the sector, according to a letter obtained by the Post. “[The ministry] has agreed to eliminate charges ...

Agriculture tycoon Mong Reththy yesterday confirmed a second shipment of Koe Romeat mangoes, twice the size of the first, will be headed for China this week from his Preah Sihanouk plantation. ...

Cambodian paddy rice production fell only slightly during the first half of this year’s dry season, despite 12,000 hectares of usually productive land deemed unusable due to last year’s floods. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, dry season paddy rice production between December ...

Preah Vihear provincial governor Oum Mara has sent a letter to inform Interior Minister Sar Kheng that he is ordering an NGO to close its local offices, on the grounds that the organization is inciting villagers to destroy sugarcane farmed by a Chinese company. In the ...

Police in Preah Vihear province say they have uncovered more evidence of child labor on a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation and will send the case to court if further investigation confirms their preliminary findings. A former employee of the Lan Feng plantation filed a complaint last month ...

As Thailand sells its rice reserves and reforms in Myanmar are rewarded with more access to markets abroad, Cambodia’s total exports of milled rice are on the decline, falling more than 10 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same ...

The government and industry insiders are worried about the steady decline of rubber prices over the last three years, during which the area it is cultivated in has grown. “Farmers and investors raised concern . . . over the trend of the market and the price of natural ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said that he would like to see the stronger economic and trade cooperation between Cambodia and Brunei. And Cambodia want to increase the rice export to Brunei. ...