Agricultural commodities, processing and products

Police and human rights workers are investigating claims that a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation in Preah Vihear province has been employing child workers since December. Oeu Bunthany said the Y Heng Company fired her on Saturday after she complained to local police that up to 20 children ...

The Cambodian Rice Exporters would like to alert the rice community that some of the nation’s rice exporters’ websites and e-mail addresses have been attacked and compromised by hackers. ...

A 44-year-old woman was run over and killed by a harvesting machine on Sunday while working on a sugarcane plantation in Kompong Speu province owned by CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat, marking at least the second death on the plantation since December. Y Mom, originally from ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht said he has no plans to launch an investigation into Cambodia’s much-criticized sugarcane plantations after a meeting with Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. Bottom line: Cambodia’s free trade benefits to Europe are safe for ...

Dozens of ethnic minority Kreung villagers protested outside the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Monday, demanding the release of a fellow Kreung man presently in pretrial detention for setting fire to a pile of wood on land the community sold in 2007 but claims it was ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht will visit Cambodia this week, the European Commission announced, with rights groups hoping that land grabbing related to sugar plantations will be high on the agenda. Following bilateral meetings in Brussels last week between Cambodia and the EU during ...

Hundreds of trucks hauling sugarcane queue up along the dusty roads that cut a path through a plantation in Kampong Speu province. Their destination: Cambodia’s most advanced sugar refinery. Its owners say the landmark project, run by the Phnom Penh Sugar Company and its president, ruling ...

Cambodia officially announced the creation of the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) to improve competitiveness, promote trade, and increase investment in the rice sector, according to comments from the Prime Minister. Board elections are expected to take place Mrch 24 and the chairman is limited to ...

The Ministry of Agriculture has created designated bird flu contamination zones in Phnom Penh and Kandal province following the deaths of hundreds of birds due to the H5N1 virus, officials said Wednesday. Agriculture Minister Ouk Rabon signed two directives late last month saying that poultry being ...

An existing moratorium on economic land concessions should be no impediment to pouring more cash into the Kingdom’s booming, and highly criticised, rubber trade, industry executives in the capital heard yesterday, as many current ELCs can simply be recycled to a new crop of investors. Ly ...

An ad hoc committee comprised of representatives from the European Union, the Ministry of Commerce, provincial administrations and the sugar industry met again yesterday at the ministry’s headquarters to continue its discussion of issues faced by those displaced by sugar plantations. The committee touched upon topics ...

More than 20 families working on a controversial palm oil plantation in Ratanakkiri province owned by the Hoang Anh Lumphat company have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing the owners of improperly withholding one month’s pay. Lor Sophal said he and another 22 families, ...

The 19 families in Pailin province who were told by police and military police on Saturday to vacate their land filed a complaint with Adhoc on Monday, the provincial coordinator for the NGO said. Authorities told the families to move on Saturday from the 95-hectares they ...

More than 60 police and military police informed 19 families farming on a plot of land in Pailin province’s Sala Krao district on Saturday that they would have to move as they were growing crops on state land. However, Prak Sophima, provincial coordinator for rights group ...

Auditors from the Coca-Cola Company visited Oddar Meanchey province on Friday to investigate allegations of land grabbing against sugar plantations that supply the global drinks giant, but called off a community meeting because of a heavy police presence, an NGO said Sunday. Chun Bora of the ...

As buyers swoop in to purchase Thai rice at garage-sale prices, Cambodian exporters are dealing with lower than usual rates, and the results are being felt all the way down the supply chain to the farmers themselves. New figures from rice industry publication Oryza show that ...

Though an occasional mango or pineapple can be spotted on Eung Uy Kheam’s sleepy farm in Kampot province, it’s the 130 durian trees that the fourth-generation farmer calls his cash crop. In Kampot, on Cambodia’s southwest coast, a pilot project led by the provincial Department ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al failed to meet the villagers locked in a long-running land dispute with the Chinese-owned company Union Development Group (UDG) on Wednesday, despite visiting company officials in Koh Kong province, according to a rights worker and a provincial official. Mr. Sam Al ...

Third-party auditors hired by The Coca-Cola Company are conducting an audit of Cambodian sugar suppliers, NGO and community representatives said yesterday. “Coke has commissioned them to conduct an assessment on their suppliers. They will talk to all parties, the community, NGOs and the company,” said Eang ...

The International Finance Corporation’s compliance ombudsman has officially accepted a complaint filed by ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province against the IFC for investing in rubber plantations accused of stealing land and clearing forests. In a letter sent to the families on Monday, the ombudsman deems ...

The Chinese-owned Union Development Group in Koh Kong province is bulldozing swaths of its land concession, originally intended for a massive tourist resort, to plant cassava and palm oil trees instead, a CNRP lawmaker-elect said Monday. Son Chhay, lawmaker-elect and CNRP chief whip, visited the area ...

Through a canopy of palm leaves, sunlight falls onto 1,000 four-month-old pepper plants, each one climbing about two feet up a wooden pole in the ground. “We will be ready to harvest pepper from here in about 18 to 20 months,” says one of Kep ...

While last year was full of good news for Cambodian rice exports, which hit a record-breaking 378,800 tons, 2014 is getting off to a much slower start. Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s controversial pledge to pay farmers above market rates for their rice is coming ...

Cambodia’s rice exporters are eager to sell more of their goods in the United States and tap into the world’s largest economy. Speaking at the International Export Market Research for Cambodian Rice seminar in Phnom Penh yesterday, Song Saran, CEO of Amru Rice Cambodia, one of ...