Agricultural commodities, processing and products

Provincial government officials in Stung Treng have warned companies granted economic land concessions (ELCs) in the province to fulfil their promised development plans or face losing their rights to the land. Touch Thea, director of the Stung Treng provincial department of agriculture, said the call for ...

The commercial relationship between Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd and Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Sugar has come to an end, The Australian reported Saturday. ...

The pace of Cambodia’s rice exports are expected to slow this year. Unable to maintain the steady rate of previous years, the export volume for the first half of 2014 is much the same as it was this time last year. At the end of June, ...

Kampot pepper farmers saw a bumper crop this year with harvest levels up more than 36 per cent, but rain shortages have diminished the producers’ chances of exporting their haul. According to Nguon Lay, president of the Kampot Pepper Promotion Association (KPPA), more than 30 tonnes ...

Cambodia rice exporters are fearing that the Indian government’s decision to release 5 million tons of rice in the open market to control price hikes may have a spill over effect on global rice exports, according to local sources. ...

With the Indian government set to inject five million tonnes of rice in to its domestic market, Cambodia’s rice producers fear that any spillover into the global rice trade may impact local exports. David Van, acting secretary-general of a newly established Cambodia Rice Federation, said ...

Cambodia’s Soma Group and Thailand’s C.P. Intertrade on Thursday signed a joint-venture agreement to build a sophisticated rice milling and refining factory in the western Kampong Speu province of Cambodia. The deal was inked between Sok Puthyvuth, chief executive officer of Soma Group, and Prasit Damrongchietanon, ...

Pailin province’s $5 million animal-feed processing plant and warehouse is to finish construction in the next three months and it is a welcomed development for the local farming community. The plant’s owner, Chea Kea, who also owns Diamond Crown casino on the border with Thailand in ...

Lagging demand from foreign buyers has led to Cambodian rice being stockpiled at the country’s mills, according to the head of the country’s peak rice body. Sok Puthyvuth, president of the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF), said that with exporters receiving fewer orders, the country’s larger rice ...

A high-level agricultural official in Kampong Speu province has been charged with stealing thousands of dollars from paddy rice farmers after promising to deliver them land titles in January 2013, a rights group representative and a court prosecutor said yesterday. Cher Pich, 44, deputy director of ...

Villagers in Koh Kong’s Botum Sakor district said Friday that Union Development Group (UDG) used military forces to prevent villagers from planting paddy rice on land that is locked in a longstanding dispute, a claim the military denied. Khun Thala, a 40-year-old villager, said Friday that ...

Italy plans to lobby the European Union to halt duty-free imports of rice from Cambodia to protect local rice growers and millers, an industry source says. In a report Thursday, oryza.com said Italy was preparing to submit a report to Brussels saying that Cambodian rice was ...

Cambodia’s salt production rose sharply at the end of this year’s harvest season thanks to more favourable weather conditions enhancing yields. Salt production in Kampot and Kep provinces – home to Cambodia’s salt fields – reached 147,000 tonnes this year, nearly double the 80,000 tonnes recorded ...

In December 2011, the managing director of Megagreen Imex Cambodia, Renne Outh, proudly announced that his firm had inked a $21 million deal to be the first to ship Cambodian rice to the Philippines. Nearly two and a half years on, not a single Cambodian grain ...

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated Cambodia’s 2014 rice exports to increase slightly to 1.2 million tons over that in 2013 due to increased production. The FAO reports that its exports estimate includes unofficial exports of milled as well as paddy rice ...

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”, ...

Rice exports to Thailand plummeted in the first four months of the year as a result of that country’s surplus, which reached record levels at the end of 2013. Between January and April, Cambodia exported just 1,550 tonnes of rice to Thailand, down 89 per cent ...

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 newly-formed Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF), a body that aims to unite the rice sector under one representative body in the country, just elected its first chairman and he happens to be the son of Cambodia’s deputy prime minister. He is also the CEO of ...