Agricultural commodities, processing and products

Rubber industry experts and government officials from ASEAN member countries gathered in Siem Reap yesterday to agree on harmonised standards for rubber products that would facilitate cross-border trade. The Asean Consultative Committee for Standards and Quality (ACCSQ) Rubber-Based Product Working Group (RBPWG) agreed to 61 harmonised ...

About 40,000 Battambang rice-farming families already suffering steep losses from a severe drought are at risk of seeing their crops wiped out entirely by devastating floods as late seasonal rains start to kick in. A drought that meteorologists have blamed on the tail-end of an ...

Representatives of Cambodia’s rice sector and the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) met yesterday with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to discuss the implementation of a five-year program to promote the Kingdom’s agricultural products. ...

The Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) yesterday agreed to create provincial level committees to provide emergency relief to the Kingdom’s beleaguered rice sector, currently in crisis due to falling exports. ...

Just a month since their election, the leaders of the nation’s apex rice industry have cast a motion to extend their terms – a move some have greeted with suspicion. ...

Cambodia is seeking to export milled rice and sugar to East Timor, according to the Ministry of Commerce, with experts saying it will expand markets for the Kingdom’s agricultural products. ...

The Ministry of Commerce set up a new taskforce on Friday to address challenges faced by the Kingdom’s struggling rice industry and assess demands made by members of the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF), who have decried the ineffectiveness of an earlier taskforce set up by ...

In defiance of an order by Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Khoun Sreng, more than 100 people protested outside the offices of Equitable Cambodia (EC) yesterday. They held signs denouncing the NGO, as community representatives inside submitted a letter withdrawing their consent for the group to represent ...

In December, South Korea announced that it planned to import dried mangos from Cambodia and the news was heralded as a sign that the country’s lackluster mango export sector was improving. However, a lack of machinery in the Kingdom has meant that the South Korean ...

Tighter border controls by Thai authorities could result in thousands of tonnes of Cambodian agricultural goods getting stranded at the border next month when local farmers begin harvesting their crops, sources warned yesterday. ...

Representatives of evicted families and a sugarcane plantation owned by a prominent CPP senator announced an agreement on Thursday that provides compensation ranging from $500 to $5,000 to eligible villagers after a five-year battle over land. ...

Though the rice-planting season has started and nationwide rice cultivation this month has been higher than planned, farmers are worried that adverse weather events caused by climate change will ruin their crops. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ planning and statistics department, the ...

Meanchey district police and security guards yesterday clashed with about 70 Koh Kong province villagers at the capital’s Samaki Rainsy pagoda, shoving and pushing them as they tried to make their way to the Ministry of Land Management. ...

More than 600 kilograms of ivory were seized on Friday at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, but the provincial court has yet to receive a complaint about the case from customs officials, a provincial prosecutor told Khmer Times yesterday. ...

Just three months since starting production, Cambodia’s largest sugar mill is sitting idle due to a shortage of its primary input sugarcane, a provincial Agriculture Ministry official said yesterday. ...

As the price of natural rubber tumbles due to a slowdown in the global economy and falling demand for the commodity, the Kingdom’s hard hit rubber industry investors are now calling on the government to revise export taxes. ...

Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak lobbied his visiting Chinese counterpart, Gao Hucheng, yesterday to consider doubling Cambodia’s annual rice export quota to China while also proposing a host of agricultural trade agreements.   ...

An industry analyst has issued a dire forecast for Cambodia’s rice sector, claiming the long-grain “white gold” that has been credited with lifting millions of Cambodia’s farmers out of abject poverty, and which seems a natural fit for the Kingdom’s agrarian workforce, is on a ...

A Chinese agricultural company has agreed to establish a banana plantation in Cambodia, according to a senior government official. ...

Though the Kingdom’s existing salt farms in Kampot and Kep produce enough salt to support domestic consumption, industry experts, however, are worried that a flood of the vital commodity from neighboring countries will spoil the market for Cambodian producers. ...

The export of crude palm oil (CPO) from agro-industrial conglomerate Mong Reththy Group reached 13,000 metric tons in the first six months this year, up a huge 116 percent compared to the same period last year. ...

The National Assembly’s (NA) Second Commission on Economics, Finance, Banking and Auditing yesterday asked the European Union (EU) to increase rice and clothing import quotas from Cambodia, after a discussion on EU subsidies to the Kingdom. ...

More than 200kg of old meatballs were seized by the government’s Camcontrol in a crackdown on goods past their use-by dates in Pailin on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Commerce. ...

The private sector’s campaign to develop a single recognisable umbrella brand for Cambodia’s premium varieties of fragrant rice looks increasingly tenuous after a government body voiced objections to the name selected, and argued instead that the country should market each variety of rice under its ...