Agricultural commodities, processing and products
Crop products and commodities
Draft of New Public Land Policy Is Released
The government on Friday released a draft of a new public policy guide on the county’s contentious land sector, a move that was welcomed by NGOs, who also called for the government to hold further consultations on the draft. Local rights groups have singled out ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/draft-of-new-public-land-policy-is-released-20672/
New Kampot Salt Farm Has Big Ambitions
TOEK CHHOU DISTRICT, Kampot province – A donor-backed project launched here on Saturday aims to produce Cambodia’s first export-quality sea salt and invigorate the struggling local salt industry. In a ceremony among Kampot’s vast fields of coastal saltpans and low levees, company representatives from Asia Salt ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/new-kampot-salt-farm-has-big-ambitions-20505/
Forest Allegedly Cleared By Company
Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. “The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042965293/National/forest-allegedly-cleared-by-company.html
Kingdom spending $3m to boost rubber quality
A $3 million initiative to purify the quality of rubber trees planted across the country is intended to spur farmers to plant more rubber, a government official said. Ly Phalla, director general of the General Directorate of Rubber at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042965285/Business/kingdom-spending-3m-to-boost-rubber-quality.html
Rubber draft law addresses regulatory holes
The government is drafting a rubber law to regulate the sector in response to the rapid growth of rubber plantations across the country, an official said. Ly Phalla, director general of the General Directorate of Rubber at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said officials ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042665257/Business/rubber-draft-law-addresses-regulatory-holes.html
Scale of Wildlife Sanctuary Destruction Denied
A rights worker and forestry official yesterday contradicted a local newspaper report claiming that more than $100 million worth of timber had been illegally extracted from Ratanakirri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. Adhoc’s provincial coordinator for Ratanakirri, Chhay Thy, denied having said a total of 16,000 ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/scale-of-wildlife-sanctuary-destruction-denied-20366/
Rubber Firm Accused of Illegal Deforestation
A rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of encroaching on communal land belonging to an ethnic minority in Ratanakkiri province has cleared 150 hectares of forest outside of its economic land concession (ELC) in the past month, according to the senior investigator for local ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rubber-firm-accused-of-illegal-deforestation-20367/
Demand for quality rice seed development
To enhance Cambodian rice yields, the government should encourage private development of rice-seed production and focus its efforts on farmers’ education and regulations that ensure the quality of seed, industry experts say. The Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), under the direction of the Ministry ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042565221/Business/demand-for-quality-rice-seed-development.html
Decision Pending in Dispute Between Villagers, Businesswoman
Farmers in Kompong Chhnang province locked in a land dispute with a local businesswoman are waiting for the government to make a decision on who owns the property after student volunteers measured the area earlier this month as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nationwide ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/decision-pending-in-dispute-between-villagers-businesswoman-20022/
Kingdom’s rubber exports rise, but prices stay flat
Rubber exports from Cambodia were up over 17 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, but the revenue from rubber stayed steady as prices decline worldwide, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce. The data showed that in the first quarter of this year, ...
Export Values Up 21 Per Cent
Cambodian export values increased more than 21 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, and officials said the rise was a positive sign for the Kingdom’s economic growth. According to the Ministry of Commerce’s export data ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042465194/Business/export-values-up-21-per-cent.html
Villagers Protest Eviction by Chinese Company
More than 100 villagers living on a 20-hectare swath of a rubber plantation in Ratanakkirri province gathered outside O’Chum commune hall yesterday to protest their eviction at the hands of a Chinese company, local officials and rights activists said. About 120 families from Trang Churng Village ...
606 New Companies Opened in Cambodia in Q1, Down 33 pct
Cambodia had granted operating licenses to 606 new companies in the first quarter of this year, a 33 percent decrease compared with the 904 firms at the same period last year, the Commerce Ministry’s report showed Tuesday. Yim Rom, an official at the ministry’s statistics ...
Thais remove cassava and maize import restrictions
In order to boost the Kingdom’s trade performance and improve the quality of lives of farmers along the Thai-Cambodia border, Thailand has agreed to remove import restrictions on Cambodian cassava and maize. Speaking to reporters after the forth meeting of the Joint Trade Committee between Cambodia ...
Luxury Wood Haul Found on Rubber Concession
Authorities in Ratanakkiri province arrested and charged two men with illegal logging after discovering about 4,000 pieces of luxury wood on an economic land concession held by a Vietnamese rubber company, officials said. [Deputy Provincial Forestry Administration Chief Phan Phoeun] said that although the wood ...
Land-Titling Project Denied Minorities of Property Rights
Hundreds of indigenous minorities in Ratanakkiri province are being made worse off by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s land-titling scheme which, rather than securing their property rights, is contributing to the loss of their ancestral lands, according to a new report. The report supports complaints aired since ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/land-titling-project-denied-minorities-of-property-rights-19528/
Stronger ties with Cambodia sought ahead of rice-trading zone
Thailand will forge closer ties with Cambodia and other neighbouring countries to increase competency in rice trading and boost the bargaining power of Asean countries by setting up a rice-trading zone soon. Also, Thailand will expand crop cooperation to cassava to raise farm incomes in the ...
Cambodia growth to continue, but development faces shortfalls
Despite steady economic growth in recent years, Cambodia remains one of the least-developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region and faces the challenge of diversifying its economy and moving up the production value chain, the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) ...
Lauren Crothers, P. 20
http://The Cambodia Daily
Salt Harvest Below Forecast
The Kep-Kompot Salt Producers Community says salt production fell nearly 50 per cent below forecasts because of early rainfall, which is assumed to end salt harvesting for the year. Prime Minister Hun Sen, however, has stepped in to ensure that price remains stable. Hun Sen ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013041965112/Business/salt-harvest-below-forecast.html
Pepper Crop in Kompong Cham Hit by Hot Weather
As this year’s pepper harvest gets under way, farmers in Kompong Cham province are expecting lower yields due to severe hot weather in recent months. Yin Sopha, executive director of the Dar Memot Development Agriculture Pepper Cooperative, said the hot weather and lack of rain ...
Tate & Lyle Defends Sugar Plantation Deal In Koh Kong
A U.K. firm being sued by 200 Cambodian farmers over the loss of their land to two sugar plantations has defended its business dealings, claiming that the affected families were dealt with legally and were properly compensated for the loss of their properties. Local farmers ...
Firm Announces Rice Energy Plan in Cambodia
A U.S.-based energy company has announced that it is planning a biomass project using genetically modified rice in Cambodia, in a purportedly massive deal about which little information has been made public. In a statement posted online Thursday, Sino Bioenergy Corp. said it had signed a ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/firm-announces-rice-energy-plan-in-cambodia-19105/
Koh Kong Sugar Firm Makes Offer to Return Disputed Land
The Thai owners of a pair of sugar plantations in Koh Kong province accused of forcing hundreds of farmers off their land will give the land back if it can be proved that those evicted legally own the land, rights workers and a village representative ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/koh-kong-sugar-firm-makes-offer-to-return-disputed-land-18770/
Farmers Sue UK Sugar Firm For Millions
Hundreds of Cambodian families are suing the British sugar firm Tate & Lyle in one of the U.K’s highest courts over a pair of plantations in Koh Kong province they accuse of violently forcing them off their land and out of their homes. The British law ...