Agriculture

As Cambodia’s rice harvest gets into full swing, the government said yesterday that it expects this year’s crop to exceed last year’s, despite fears that drought would limit the yield. Minister of Agriculture Chan Sarun said that farmers had already harvested more than 3 million tons ...

The court system is still “chronically underfunded” and laws on its management are almost 20 years overdue, the U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi said yesterday. One year ago, during his sixth mission to Cambodia, Mr. Subedi described reform in the courts as moving at a ...

The Alliance of Rice Producers Exporters of Cambodia (ARPEC) will release US$2 million after December 15th to its members in nine provinces so they can buy paddy rice before the harvest season ends and stocks been depleted. He said the pay out is being drawn from ...

A final report from Thailand’s human rights commission on the alleged rights violations of a Thai company involved in two Cambodian sugar plantations is expected by late January, a member of the commission said. In July, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand said its investigation ...

Idemitsu Kosan Co. said Monday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Cambodian government to promote biofuel production in the Southeast Asian country. The move is part of plans by the Japanese energy firm to produce bioethanol out of cassava, a type of potato, ...

The European Union’s ambassador to Cambodia yesterday urged the government to heed the advice of the U.N.’s visiting human rights envoy, who has come under increasing rebuke from officials for his unflattering reports. Addressing a crowd of about 3,000, mostly garment factory workers, at Phnom Penh’s ...

Economic land concessions granted to a pair of Vietnamese companies in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district were endangering the traditional lifestyles of as many as 200 ethnic-minority families, villagerstold the Post yesterday. As the companies actively cleared forest to make room for the eventual rubber plantations, the government ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi, who arrived in Cambodia Sunday on a five-day mission, spent yesterday, International Human Rights Day, in Kompong Chhnang province with about 300 villagers from a community embroiled in a long-running land dispute with the wife of a government minister. James ...

In the latest chapter of what is proving to be an arduous struggle to protect a government demarcated Community Forest in Battambang province, 36 hectares of the land have reportedly been given over to outsiders including a military official. ...

The Kep-Kamport Salt Producers Community expressed concern about the production of salt this year not reaching its forecast due to the late-starting season and the lack of labour to work in the fields. Um Chhun, director of the administration office in Kep-Kamport Salt Producers Community, said ...

On the second day of his two-day visit to Ratanakkiri, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday cajoled indigenous minority members about their ready adoption of new technology amid the shift away from traditional ways of life, and extolled the benefits of rubber plantations over their ...

Despite attention from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and official development assistance, farmers are by far the largest source of investment in agriculture, the State of Food and Agriculture 2012 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization published last week said. Farmers in low and middle income ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen mocked a group of ethnic minority villagers who tried to petition him on Friday about their land dispute in northern Cambodia’s Rattanakiri province, after they were stopped from presenting their complaint during his visit on a land-titling campaign. Hun Sen was ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday distributed 541 land titles covering 1,308 hectares to 301 mostly ethnic minority families in Andong Meas district. ...

Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh sees great potential for US companies that want to invest in agriculture, where he says they can do legitimate business relatively free from the graft as Cambodia makes anti-corruption headway. Cham Prasidh was in Washington last week, where he and other ...

A new report on land grabbing around the world highlights Cambodia as a prime example of the ill effect of the growing global appetite for farmland by industrial scale operations. Released Wednesday in Stockholm by three Swedish NGOs, The Race for Land offers Cambodia as one ...

Discussions on restarting World Bank loans to Cambodia will not commence until after the 2013 elections, a bank official said yesterday. After a landmark freeze on loans announced in December 2010, a response to the forced evictions by the government of residents of the Boeung Kak ...

CPP Senator and business tycoon Ly Yong Phat has convinced to more families in Koh Kong province to take a cash payout in exchange for dropping out of a lawsuit involving two local sugarcane plantations he once co-owned, official said. More that 200 families in Sre ...

Eight representatives of Phnom Penh communities involved in land disputes were allowed to present their petitions to the Council of Ministers yesterday after authorities blocked about 200 of their fellow petitioners from gathering in front of the Peace Palace. During a meeting with the representatives, Bun ...

Farmers in Pailin province have complained about a shortage of workers during this year’s corn and cassava harvesting season. Meas Loeun, team leader of Momean Moy community’s 38 teams in Pailin, said the shortage of workers to help harvest corn and cassava is a major challenge ...

Cambodia’s rubber price is expected to fall further in coming years while government projects aimed at doubling rubber resin production will take effect by 2015, according to the latest figures from the Rubber General Department. Mak Kimhong, president of the Cambodia Rubber Association and owner of ...

Opposition party whip Son Chhay reiterated his call at a press conference yesterday for the government to raise taxes on economic land concessions from $5 to $7 a hectare up to $70 through an amendment to the draft of the 2013 budget. The Sam Rainsy Party ...

– Economic Land Concessions – ‘ELCs’ – ( Government Data Partial 4 items, and 1 Government Data Complete) Click here to download – Concessions for Mining (Secondary Source Data 10) Click here to download ...

The Cambodian National Rescue Party is making a strategic shift in its bid to win the next election: focusing less on traditional hot-button issues like government corruption and territorial disputes, and instead offering voters a series of concrete new policy initiatives. This required clear and ...