Agricultural policy and administration

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, ...

More than 400 people clashed with police and military police in Ratanakkiri province on Wednesday as authorities attempted to bulldoze their houses to make way for a rubber company plantation, villagers said. Authorities managed to bulldoze the houses of about 200 families, who they said had ...

The newly formed Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF), an organisation aimed at uniting the entire rice sector under one representative body, will be headed by Sok Puthyvuth, son of Deputy Prime Minister Sok An. Puthyvuth, who is also CEO of SOMA Group, a multifaceted business that includes ...

In a first for the Kingdom’s organic rice, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), successfully exported its produce to Hong Kong earlier this month, the organisation’s top official confirmed yesterday. ...

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 ...

Sexual assault and the annihilation of sacred graveyards are among the many claims levelled at Vietnamese Rubber giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) by villagers in Ratanakkiri province, a report by the World Bank’s investment arm reveals. In February, 17 indigenous communities that accused HAGL of ...

Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen is expected to pay a 3-day official visit to Dhaka from Friday to further expanding and strengthening trade relations and cooperation in agriculture sector between the two countries. During the visit, sources said Dhaka is expected to seek long-term ...

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 ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 ban on the allocation of economic land concessions was supposed to halt the unpopular practice of turning over large swaths of property to developers. And going by the numbers last year, it worked. But in the vacuum, according to local rights ...

Cambodian authorities have charged nearly half as many villagers in land dispute cases in the first three months of this year as they did in all of 2013, a local rights group said Thursday, adding that most of the rows stemmed from government-granted land concessions. Following ...

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’ ...

Dozens of representatives from at least 100 recently evicted families accused of illegally occupying state land in Kratie province traveled to Phnom Penh on Monday morning to petition Prime Minister Hun Sen for his help getting their land back. The families say local authorities have been ...

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) says its Ibis Rice project has recorded a production surplus for the first time in its five-year history, prompting a bid to export the boutique product overseas. Concentrated in Preah Vihear province, Ibis Rice farmers produced more than 435 tonnes of ...

ANZ’s financing of ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat’s controversial sugar plantation has come under fire once again, this time in an investigation by NGO Oxfam into Australia’s big four banks and their links to rights abuses in developing countries. In a report titled “Banking on ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al met with private firms with land concessions last week to gauge their compliance with government rules and regulations, and adherence to their own contracts. Amid mounting local and international pressure, Prime Minister Hun Sen in mid-2012 ordered a freeze on ...

Battambang Rice Investment Co Ltd says it has been certified as the first rice mill in Cambodia with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP). In a statement, the company said it received confirmation of GMP and HACCP certification in a ...

One hundred fishermen in Banteay Meanchey province’s Sisophon town filed a complaint with local authorities yesterday, accusing a provincial fisheries administration official in Phniet commune of selling their subsistence fishing lot to a businessman. ...

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. ...

The government-backed Rural Development Bank (RDB) will lend $64 million to Cambodia’s agriculture sector in 2014, the bank’s top official said yesterday. Sun Kunthor, president of RDB, said most of the funding would be used to support growth in Cambodia’s rice sector as it strives to ...

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 ...

Cambodian fishery exports rose slightly during the first three months of the year, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The report, which was released yesterday, says that fish exports reached 4,800 tonnes in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of ...