Agriculture and fishing

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 ...

Cambodia and Vietnam will write a joint letter to the Lao and Thai governments urging that construction of the Xayaburi dam, in northern Laos, be halted, a spokesman for the government’s Mekong committee said yesterday. Minister of Water Resources Lim Kean Hor met with Vietnam’s Minister ...

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, ...

Revenue at Sihanoukville Autonomous Port increased 13.6 per cent year on year between January and June, port officials confirmed yesterday. As the state-owned enterprise gears up for listing on the Cambodia Securities Exchange, the neighbouring Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone will play an increasingly important role in ...

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 ...

Two more of the five accused secessionists from Kratie province’s Pro Ma village turned themselves in on Friday, Ministry of Interior officials said, just days after Hun Sen declared that he would drop charges against them if they testified against the plot’s masterminds. [Bun] Ratha ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday 700 volunteers from the Cambodian People’s Party had fanned out across eight provinces to measure properties and provide titles to villagers who have been displaced by land disputes. Speaking to about 10,000 villagers in the Kroch Chhmar district of Kampong ...

Prak Thon says he will give up everything to stop a Chinese company from destroying his pagoda in Koh Kong province’s Kiri Sakor district. “I’ll allow them to demolish my house, but I will not allow them to destroy the pagoda. I’m satisfied if I die, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday marked National Fish Day by urging the public to report anyone fishing inside the Tonle Sap conservation area he established earlier this year to help protect and revive the lake’s vital fish stocks. “People have to dare to stand up and ...