Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Tycoon Try Pheap has collected an estimated 1,500 cubic metres of timber from Forestry Administration offices since the government in July issued his companies permission to confiscate “waste wood” from their offices and from the Ministry of Environment, according to preliminary government figures obtained by ...

Sheltering under a blue tarpaulin amid dense woodland in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, Nhean* sits and waits for night to fall after a long day scouring the protected forest for luxury timber. He says he works for a broker who is a supplier to one of Cambodia’s ...

Secret storage depots for illegal timber hidden in the forest in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district were discovered by ethnic minority villagers on Friday, prompting a rights worker to suggest local officials were involved in the illicit trade. ...

The Chinese government has provided forestry equipment in equivalent to 4.1 million yuan (667, 200 U.S. dollars) to Cambodia for protecting and developing forest sector, officials said. ...

Land Management Minister Im Chhun Lim intervened in a high-profile land dispute between villagers from Kratie province’s Snuol district and a South Korean agribusiness firm over the weekend, announcing Saturday that the contested 1,562-hectare tract would be taken back from the company and awarded to ...

A unique harvest is under way in the rice fields of Cambodia where tens of thousands of wild rats are being trapped alive each day to feed a growing export market for the meat of rural rodents. Popularly considered a disease-carrying nuisance in many societies, the ...

The Council of Ministers has granted farmers in Kompong Thom province permission to start farming on the floodplains of the Tonle Sap lake in an area previously off limits and home to flooded forests that provide a critical fish breeding habitat. The Council of Ministers’ notice, ...

Villagers in Mondolkiri province this week seized four trucks transporting luxury-grade timber out of a plantation they accuse of logging outside its government-granted land concession and turned the haul over to local authorities. The ethnic minority Banong villagers accuse Villa Development, which owns a local rubber ...

Cassava farmers are calling on the government to standardise prices and help stabilise demand as the market for the root crop continues to prove risky for growers. Cassava exports totalled 226,000 tonnes in the first six months of the year, down 21 per cent from a ...

The Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday released a draft policy to strengthen the agriculture sector by educating farmers on how to gain greater access to markets and increase their productivity by using sustainable farming methods. The Agriculture Extension Policy, drafted in cooperation with USAID, aims to ...

Villagers representing families in Kratie province petitioned the South Korean Embassy for help Tuesday in their dispute with a South Korean agribusiness firm, after hearing that the embassy had lodged a complaint against them. About 200 villagers from Kratie province’s Snuol district are staying at the ...

Cambodia has seen a 91 percent rise in dry rubber exports in the first half of 2014 as revenue from the exports increased only 3 percent due to global decline of rubber prices. During the January-June period this year, the country exported 42,190 tons of dry ...

Rights groups have called on the government to increase tax rates for logging companies amid the latest domestic revenue figures. According to the Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, timber exports produced $9.4 million in government tax revenue during the first half of the year, up ...

The planned construction of 88 hydroelectric dams in the lower Mekong basin by 2030 will cause food security challenges in Cambodia, experts say. “Cambodia is going to pay the highest price for dam development basin-wide, to the point of affecting the food security of its 80 ...

Economic crimes police on Wednesday arrested a woman and seized 3 tons of low-quality fishballs, claiming she had illegally imported the potentially dangerous meat. Kandal province resident Chan Thea, 37, was stopped in Phnom Penh while en route to Battambang—where police believe she was planning to ...

Desperate to cut down on illegal logging, Kampong Thom forestry officials are trying out a new strategy: disarming loggers before they can get to the trees by cracking down on chainsaw dealers and other sellers of equipment used to fell trees. On Sunday night, the Baray ...

Cambodia’s efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS over the past 15 years have won it praise, and put it well ahead of many other low-income countries.  But some of those most involved in the fight against AIDS are worried that an array of challenges could see some of ...

When authorities in Kampong Chhnang province on Friday encountered and pursued the boat of alleged illegal fisherman Chieb Ou, they couldn’t have expected to find themselves being chased instead. But that’s precisely what happened when, rather than surrendering, the 42-year-old suspect turned his boat towards the ...

In the predawn hours of May 6, a flatbed truck packed with lengths of illegally logged timber sped past a checkpoint in Ratanakkiri province, knocking aside a police car and racing off. Police later tracked down the truck to a house in Banlung City. In the ...

Rice farmers in Italy plan to block four major grain exchanges in the country this week over what they say is the European Union’s failure to keep Italian rice competitive against that of cheaper Asian rivals including Cambodia, which is given duty-free access to European ...

Authorities in Kompong Thom province are searching for a soldier suspected of smuggling rosewood who shot at police while making his getaway through a maze of narrow streets on Saturday morning. Provincial police chief Chou Sam An said his officers received a call from a deputy ...

More than 100,000 hectares of forest have been replanted across the country since 2008, according to a government report – but about 90 per cent of that amount can be chalked up to private plantations. Produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the report, ...

Khan Thea, a subsistence fisherman who lives and works along this sprawling, 7,000-hectare lake fed by the Mekong River, was not having a good day on the water. Struggling to net even a single fish, he finally resorted to a dangerous—and illegal—technique: fishing with electric current. ...

More than one year after its fish products were banned from Europe, the industry and government has done little to ensure it will be lifted. The ban, instituted in early 2013, has hurt potential fish exports to a potentially lucrative trade partner. But EU officials say Cambodia ...