Agriculture

A local police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended for demanding money from villagers before adding their names to a list of people eligible for Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new land-titling program, police and villagers said yesterday. A total of 1,100 student volunteers are being ...

There were scenes of jubilation in Cambodia’s capital last month when a group of 13 imprisoned women – including a 72-year-old grandmother – was set free by an appeal court. The women were arrested in May during peaceful demonstrations against the forced eviction of thousands ...

While Cambodia has made remarkable gains economically over the past decade and more-the Kingdom’s poverty level fell from 47 percent in 1994 to 25 percent this year-there are still some stubborn areas of underperformance. One is the issue of food security. While in recent years, the country has largely been able to produce ...

Forestry Administration officials in Banteay Meanchey province have confiscated and continue to hold equipment valued at $1.5 million from a troubled biofuel plantation without any legal backing, an official in the provincial governor’s office said. Bulldozers, steamrollers and dump trucks were confiscated last month from a ...

A Friday press conference meant to be an act of defiance and a call for justice from the so-called Kratie “secessionists” was conspicuously short on both, as two accused secessionists failed to appear as promised to demand that the government present credible evidence against them. Instead, ...

Veun sai district, Ratanakkiri – Kitted out in their camouflage uniforms, military boots, belts and Ministry of Land Management baseball caps, the dozen or so student volunteers looked like a stern bunch. There was no smiling as they sat at wooden desks in an open pagoda ...

Two consecutive months of drought have severely damaged thousands of hectares of rice fields in Krokor district and neighboring areas in Pursat province. ...

Adorned in new military uniforms, about 400 more young volunteers who have been enlisted into Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ambitious national land-titling scheme departed from Diamond Island yesterday armed with measuring tapes, computers and GPS units. The budding surveyors are the latest group of some 2,000 ...

Cambodia’s Soma Group yesterday signed a US$3-million deal with Indian company Ankur Scientific, the largest biomass-to-energy company in India, to construct a 1.5-megawatt rice husk power plant in Kampong Cham province. ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ latest list of economic land concessions reveals some peculiar discrepancies with known records of ELCs. Some that have recently been granted are missing, while others known to have been cancelled remain. The June 8 MAFF list makes no mention ...

Pou Puy, president of the Cambodian Rice Millers Association, said that the export of Cambodia’s white rice faces challenges in terms of both quantity and competitive pricing, as exports of milled rice dropped about 35 per cent for the first half of 2012 compared to ...

At one time, palm oil production stirred a lot of excitement in Cambodia. Perhaps hoping to follow in the footsteps of palm oil giants Malaysia or Indonesia, more than 10 firms in Cambodia registered for land concessions for palm cultivation around a decade ago. Today, there is one left. The others decided palm ...

Bun Chhorn and Sok Tong – fugitives accused of orchestrating a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province – are refusing to admit their guilt, and will hold a press conference Friday in Phnom Penh to say as much, despite Hun Sen’s recent promise to drop their ...

An EU scheme to boost trade with developing nations is fuelling land grabs in Cambodia, activists say, with thousands evicted from their property to make way for a booming sugar industry. Campaigners are taking their fight to European supermarkets, encouraging a boycott of Cambodian sugar, which ...

Despite heavy rains in parts of the country, a month-long drought has destroyed over 10,000 hectares of rice seedlings in other areas, agriculture officials said yesterday. Battambang province was the hardest hit, with 4,640 hectares of seedlings destroyed by the drought and another 10,000 hectares affected. In ...

The number of cases of foot-and-mouth disease dropped significantly in first six months of 2012 compared with the three previous years, according to new report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). However, the report’s authors say the disease is still a problem for Cambodian farmers, especially owners of small farms, and can severely ...

After years of futile protests demanding their land back, villagers forcibly evicted by sugarcane plantations connected to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat launched a boycott campaign yesterday targeting the international firms that sell his sugar. Thousands of families accuse the senator’s plantations of forcing them off ...

The European Union should immediately remove trade preferences it gives to Cambodian sugar companies accused of human-rights violations including land grabs, representatives of the affected communities told a press conference in Phnom Penh yesterday. Community representatives from Koh Kong, Kampong Speu and Oddar Meanchey provinces said ...

More than 170 villagers in Banteay Meanchey province locked in a land dispute with a local company protested yesterday in front of the provincial hall, seeking land titles in compliance with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s recent titling project. The families say they had been granted a ...

Twelve of the 29 excavators seized by military police in Kompong Thom province during Monday’s military police raids on illegal Tonle Sap reservoirs were confiscated from a farming collective run by a newly elected CPP commune chief. Peanh Poul, director of the Dry Rice Season Community, ...

Kompong Thom provincial military police confiscated 29 excavators and arrested four drivers in a four-day operation ending yesterday aimed at stopping the illegal construction of reservoirs around the Tonle Sap lake, officials said. The reservoirs, which are used to retain water for use in dry-season farming, ...

Tek Nim is well versed in dealing with adversity. In year nine, she dropped out of school, began working on the family farm and finally became resigned to the belief that her brightest prospect was to leave Omlaing commune, in Kampong Speu province’s Thpong district, ...

More than 100 villagers involved in a land dispute with an import-export company in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district protested Sunday against the firm’s alleged attempts to stop them from farming the area, officials and villagers said. Meas Sarin, one of the protesters, said that about ...

Cambodia offers plenty of opportunities for Vietnamese exporters although there is intense competition from countries such as Thailand and China, delegates said at a conference in HCM City last Thursday. Le Quoc Phong, general director of the Binh Dien Fertiliser Group, said the Cambodian market had ...