Agricultural commodities, processing and products

For breakfast, it’s rice. For lunch, it’s rice again, and for dinner – rice. Sometimes, Cambodian Un Koy says, her mother will prepare some beans or carrots, and on very special days even fish or pork. Across Asia, rice is the most widely consumed staple. That’s ...

Cambodia reported a 29 percent rise in dry rubber exports in the first five months of 2013, but revenues from the exports rose only 4 percent due to price decline in international markets. Currently, the country has about 300,000 hectares of rubber trees, according to ...

Villagers in Preah Vihear’s Kulen district are seeking the assistance of rights group Adhoc, claiming a Malaysian rubber company has stopped them from receiving land titles. Sok Yam, 48, one of the four representatives of the Sro Yong commune residents, said members of 72 families thumbprinted ...

An international group that promotes the ethical sourcing of sugar for the food and energy industries has suspended the membership of U.K. sugar giant Tate & Lyle for failing to answer complaints that it was buying from Cambodian plantations accused of stealing land from local ...

The Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority (RISDA) is opening two plantations in Cambodia, its director-general Datuk Wan Mohamad Zuki Mohamad said Wednesday. He said discussions had been held with the companies that would be tasked with managing the plantations last week. “We are now awaiting approval ...

A lawsuit filed by families in Koh Kong province accusing U.K. sugar giant Tate & Lyle of wrongfully profiting off land stolen from them is heading to trial after efforts to mediate a settlement fell through earlier this month, according to those involved. Law firm Jones ...

Construction of a special economic zone (SEZ) near the Vietnamese border in Ratanakkiri province’s eastern O’Yad­aw district is on track, but who exactly will avail of the facility and its services remains a mystery—even for senior provincial officials. The latest announced venture of agro-industry land concession ...

While Kampot pepper and Kampong Speu palm sugar carry the brand-building Geographical Indication (GI) status, newcomers seeking the same tag continue to wait for funding to get their products off the ground. In 2010, Kampot pepper and Kampong Speu palm sugar were the first Cambodian goods ...

Romam Gvin could be described as a counterintuitive voter. Intuition might lead you to believe that Mr. Gvin blames the government for the loss of his land to the Vietnamese rubber company that now owns everything for as far as the eye can see here in ...

Sales of Cambodia’s World Trade Organization-certified pepper from Kampot province fell to 21 tonnes at the end of this year’s harvest season, a slight decline from 22 tonnes after the end of last year’s season. Nguon Lay, president of the Kampot Pepper Association, said fast-changing ...

Cambodia-based SOMA Energy will construct two bio-mass power-generating plants that convert rice husks into electricity to supply Cambodian farmers working in the provinces. SOMA energy, a subsidiary of SOMA group, has invested nearly $3 million in the construction of the plants, one of which is located ...

Cambodia’s rice harvest is forecast to reach 9.1 million tonnes this year, down from an estimated 9.3 million tonnes last year but up from 8.8 million tonnes in 2011, the Food and Agricultural Organization said Thursday. The estimates were contained in the UN agency’s quarterly Crop ...

Sales of Cambodia’s World Trade Organization-certified palm sugar from Kampong Speu province dipped to 12 tonnes at the end of the harvest season this year, about a 30 per cent decline from 2012. Two districts with palm trees in Kampong Speu province were granted geographical indication ...

Cambodia has seen a sharp rise in the exports of milled rice in the first six months of this year thanks to increasing demand on international markets, an official said Wednesday. The figures, from the single window secretariat for facilitating milled rice exports, showed that the ...

While exports of Cambodian rice have been booming, analysts are predicting that new competition from Myanmar could eventually rain on the parade. Cambodia exported nearly 176,000 tonnes of rice in the first six months of the year, a 125 per cent increase from the same period ...

Production of Cambodian organic rice is rising rapidly as international demand for the product increases, experts said at a forum for growers and other in­dustry members held Tuesday at the Phnom Penh headquarters of agricultural NGO Cedac. “In the first six months of this year we’ve ...

An infestation of large snails is destroying rice fields in Preah Sihanouk province’s Prey Nop district, raising concerns among farmers that yields from this year’s harvest will be much lower than usual. Eng Samol, Prey Nop district agriculture director, said Tuesday that the snails had already ...

Less than two months after staffers at a Vietnamese rubber concessionaire were charged over setting homes aflame during a land dispute, the company has been accused of burning and bulldozing more than 900 cashew nut trees and eight hectares of plantation land in O’Chum district, ...

The government of Brunei on Saturday signed a one-year contract to purchase 3,000 tons of jasmine or fragrant rice from Cambodia, the first such deal reached by the two Asian nations. The deal was inked between Pg Haji Mohd Noordin B PLP Pg Haji Mohd Said, ...

Cambodia saw a one per cent rise in inflation in April compared with the same month last year, according to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (NIS). Sim Ly, an official at the NIS said there was a slight increase in food and ...

Chea Kea, owner of the Daimond Crown casino on the border with Thailand in Pailin province, is investing in a $4 million feed processing warehouse that will also be used to store commodities and house farm animals. Construction on the warehouse, which is expected to ...

After a visit to Phnom Penh last week, John C Tsang, finance secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, took to his blog to call for more direct imports of Cambodian rice, which he says comes through a third country. In a post on June ...

Representatives of a Vietnamese rubber firm that has been accused of contributing to the illegal deforestation of vast tracts of land in northeast Cambodia joined local CPP-aligned government officials in Ratanakkiri province on Friday to hand out rice, salt and sugar to more than 400 ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of $55 million to help transform the rice sector of Cambodia into a viable commercial industry as well as taking care of the land and water resources. ADB’s Climate-Resilient Rice Commercialization Sector Development Program―which will run ...