Agriculture and fishing

Bangladesh and Cambodia have decided to set up a joint commission to boost bilateral relations and conclude bilateral agreements on agricultural and cultural cooperation, investment promotion and protection. The agreements will be inked during Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s three-day official visit to Dhaka beginning on ...

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 ...

Mixed security forces led by Kratie province’s court prosecutor yesterday arrested six people in a huge illegal logging bust, confiscating more than 100 cubic metres of protected luxury-grade timber. The arrests of both Cambodian and Vietnamese nationals were the culmination of a three-day crackdown by prosecutor ...

Human rights workers say the US and other countries should censure Thailand over fisheries practices that mean near-slavery for many Cambodians and others. An investigative report by the UK-based Guardian newspaper exposed serious abuses in the Thai fishing trade, where workers are cheated of pay, kept ...

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 ...

US credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has ranked Cambodia’s economy and creditworthiness as the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Of 116 nations measured by S&P as part of a vulnerability index published last month – with a number 1 ranking being the ...

A Battambang bridge project isn’t to blame for blocking a river and preventing water from reaching parched rice fields, an Asian Development Bank investigation concluded yesterday. Bavel district farmers accused the bank-funded construction project of choking the river since construction began in December, leaving their recently ...

When Cambodia’s most prominent forest activist, Chut Wutty, was gunned down in April 2012, the community network he created to sabotage the rampant deforestation of this vast forest fragmented. The forest patrols that he organised nearly ground to a halt. Without money to fund large-scale expeditions, ...

Kompong Chhnang provincial authorities allegedly locked villagers out of the provincial hall after dozens came to deliver a complaint against the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, before locking out a newly appointed councilor who left the building to talk with them. The villagers ...

Representatives for the 200 Cambodian families suing U.K. sugar firm Tate & Lyle for allegedly profiting off of their stolen land say they have rejected the firm’s latest offer to settle the dispute and are looking forward to their first court date, set for October. The ...

As the sun rises on Tonle Sap Lake, fishermen head out from floating villages like this one, past half-submerged mangroves and flooded shrub land, to check their nets, much as they have for centuries. Every year, the lake yields about 300,000 tons of fish, making it ...

Fishermen who have lived off the Tonle Sap river in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district for generations were forced upstream recently after hundreds of dead fish mysteriously appeared in local waters. The 29 families who live on houseboats from which they cast their traps started moving ...

ORO Financecorp Plc held its official launch on Friday, joining the growing ranks of microfinance institutions in the Kingdom. ORO Financecorp started providing business, agricultural and tractor loans in January with a $4 million capital investment from Seng Enterprise Co Ltd of Cambodia and Creed Asia ...

At Chraing Chamreh wholesale fish market in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district, men frantically scoop dark, snake-like Trey Phtok fish out of a huge steel tank and into a wicker basket. The flickering pile of tails and gaping mouths is placed on a scale and weighs ...

Twelve families locked in a land dispute in Kampot province blocked a construction company on Wednesday from dumping earth onto fields they maintain are theirs, villagers and a rights worker said Thursday. The villagers say the company began encroaching on their land in 2011, when they ...

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 NGO Results International has been studying nutrition in Cambodia, and found that despite Cambodia’s good economic growth, 40 per cent of children under five there, have stunted growth. Cambodia may produce plenty of food, but its people are not eating a balanced diet. ...

The Ministry of Water and Meteorology has warned farmers of a rainfall shortage forecast to last at least another month, with average daily temperatures also forecast to remain above average. The announcement, issued on Monday, says that up until mid-July Phnom Penh, Kandal, Kampong Speu, Takeo, ...

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 Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology issued a weather warning Monday, saying an approaching low-pressure system will this week kick the rainy season into full swing. The warning says heavy rains are due to hit most of the country this week and that the tail ...

With barely a drop of rain falling on their parched fields, Battambang farmers are pleading with a construction company to stop blockading the local river so their recently planted crops don’t dry out. The Asian Development Bank-funded bridge connecting Battambang and Banteay Meanchey has blocked the ...

A group of villagers who were evicted from Kratie province to make way for a Vietnamese rubber company were given a 750-hectare social land concession by the government Thursday, but many said they would hold out for a better offer. A letter signed by Kratie Governor ...

Representatives for about 250 families involved in a long-running dispute with an agri-business firm in Kompong Speu province have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc and say they will attempt to retake land that was stolen from them. About 60 of the villagers traveled to ...

More than 200 people from the group Land Communities for Peace marched from the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) to the National Assembly on Thursday in defiance of a ban issued by City Hall. Phnom Penh deputy governor Khuong Sreng said the protest would not be allowed after ...