Agriculture
Agricultural policy and administration
Preah Vihear villagers continue to protest
More than 30 families continued to demonstrate in Preah Vihear province’s Chheb district on Friday and Saturday over what they say is the illegal clearing of land by a Chinese company, villagers said Sunday. The families accuse Rui Feng (Cambodia) International of clearing 500 hectares of ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/preah-vihear-villagers-continue-to-protest-52347/
Kratie villagers block road after officials torch homes
Police and military police in Kratie province’s Snuol district on Wednesday burned to the ground 56 homes they said were on protected land, causing displaced villagers to block National Road 76 in protest for four hours, officials said. Snuol district Governor Kong Kimny said Thursday that ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/kratie-villagers-block-road-after-officials-torch-homes-52232/
For poor, eating dead poultry is a calculated risk
In late January, five of the 10 chickens owned by Leng Lal, a subsistence rice farmer in Kratie province, suddenly died. Although Mr. Lal, 40, said he knew the dead birds might be dangerous and he should burn and bury the carcasses, he instructed his 8-year-old ...
Sek Odom and Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/for-poor-eating-dead-poultry-is-a-calculated-risk-52076/
Ministries to Help Farmers Hurt by Sugar Plantations
The government on Monday agreed to a comprehensive solution for rural families who have lost their land to well-connected agricultural plantations exporting sugar to the European Union (E.U.) duty free and will meet again early next month to discuss details. The decision was made at a ...
Hul Reaksmey and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ministries-to-help-farmers-hurt-by-sugar-plantations-51971/
Minorities complain to IFC over rubber farm funding
More than a dozen ethnic minority communities from Cambodia’s northeast filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on Monday, accusing it of breaking its own safeguard policies by investing in rubber plantations they say are stealing their land and illegally logging their forests. The ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/minorities-complain-to-ifc-over-rubber-farm-funding-51868/
Families to file complaint with IFC over rubber plantations
Some of the hundreds of families losing land and community forest to Vietnamese-owned rubber plantations in Cambodia’s northeast will this week file a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) over the investment it has made in the plantations’ parent company. Eang Vuthy, executive director of ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-to-file-complaint-with-ifc-over-rubber-plantations-51765/
Sugar Firm Offers Defense After Call for Probe of EU Trade Links
The director of a CPP senator’s sugar plantation accused of stealing land from hundreds of families said Wednesday that most locals were happy with the new jobs the plantation has generated, a week after a visiting European Union parliamentarian renewed calls for an investigation of ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sugar-firm-offers-defense-after-call-for-probe-of-eu-trade-links-51545/
Villagers Sued for Property Damage by Company
Four villagers locked in a land dispute with an agribusiness firm in Banteay Meanchey province said Tuesday that they had been summonsed to the provincial court over a property damage lawsuit filed by the company. The suit was originally filed last year, but villagers said they ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-sued-for-property-damage-by-company-51458/
Cambodia has 325,900 hectares of rubber plantations by 2013: report
Cambodia has 325,900 hectares of rubber plantations as of last year, up 16 percent compared with 280,350 hectares in a year earlier, a report of the Ministry of Agriculture showed Monday. Some 78,444 hectares of them are old enough to be yielded, the report said, adding ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2014-02/03/c_133091294.htm
EU Parliamentarian Finds Abuses Fueled by Trade Scheme
Sugar plantations that benefit from the European Union’s Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme, which allows preferential access to the E.U.’s market, have further impoverished Cambodia’s poor, and an investigation needs to be launched, a member of the European Parliament (MEP) said on Friday. Patrice Tirolien, MEP ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/eu-parliamentarian-finds-abuses-fueled-by-trade-scheme-51188/
France fronts $359 million
The French Agency for Development (AFD) has pledged $359 million in grants and loans to Cambodia over the next three years, state news agency AKP reported Friday. ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/france-fronts-359-million
ANZ sugar fallout broadens
Shareholders will want answers from ANZ bank after it was revealed this week that the banking giant’s joint venture in Cambodia financed ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat’s controversial sugar plantation, the Responsible Investment Association Australia (RIAA) said yesterday. Environmental audit documents obtained by the Post on Tuesday ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/anz-sugar-fallout-broadens
Exports consistent for Cambodia’s ag sector
Cambodia exported 2.9 million tons of agricultural products last year, roughly the same as 2012, but experts say the figure does not reflect the huge potential for the market. According to official data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, exports included more than 1 ...
May Kunmakara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/exports-consistent-cambodia%E2%80%99s-ag-sector
Cambodia produces 9.3 mln tonnes of paddy rice last year
Cambodia had produced 9.3 million tons of paddy rice in 2013, which was comparable to the amount in 2012, according to the report of the Ministry of Agriculture on Thursday. Hean Vanhorn, director of the single window secretariat for facilitating milled rice exports, called on ...
Global Times News Staff
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/838958.shtml#.UuHaSMr-LIU
EU resolution passed against sugar abuses
The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling on the bloc’s executive body to urgently act on an EU preferential trade scheme found to have carried high risks of human rights violations in Cambodia through land evictions for industrial sugar development. In a January 16 resolution, ...
Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/eu-resolution-passed-against-sugar-abuses
Tax hike cuts slaughterers’ profit
Almost 50 livestock slaughterers in Preah Vihear town yesterday protested a rise in taxes and fees they must to pay on their products. Pin Raksmey, chief of the committee at Kampong Pranak market, said that the problem was out of his hands. ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tax-hike-cuts-slaughterers%E2%80%99-profit
Season’s Bountiful Fish Catch Means Prahok Will Be Plentiful
Last week marked the end of the annual fishing season and many who had gathered on the riverbanks to buy and sell fish in the Russei Keo district of Phnom Penh called it the best season in years. An abundance of fish, there were bargain prices ...
Ben Sokhean and Malia Guyer-Stevens
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/seasons-bountiful-fish-catch-means-prahok-will-be-plentiful-50893/
Food Vendors Feel the Bite of Soaring Inflation
Two months ago, Sok Sathya spent less than a dollar for a kilogram of oranges to sell from his sidewalk stall across from a row of garment factories in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district. Now the same oranges cost Mr. Sathya, 39, more than 6,000 riel, or ...
Hul Reaksmey and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/food-vendors-feel-the-bite-of-soaring-inflation-50773/
Cambodia's trade with foreign countries reaches nearly 16 bln USD last year
Cambodia’s trade volume with foreign countries amounted to 15.9 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 18 percent compared with 13.4 billion U.S. dollars in a year earlier, according to the report of the Commerce Ministry on Wednesday. The country had exported products in equivalent to 6.9 ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2014-01/15/c_133046741.htm
Rice Exports Rise by More Than 170,000 Tons
Rice exports increased from 205,717 tons in 2012 to 378,856 tons in 2013 as a result of high demand from the European Union as well as countries in Asia, according to figures released Thursday by the Ministry of Agriculture. France imported the most Cambodian milled rice, ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/rice-exports-rise-by-more-than-170000-tons-49976/
Royal Group makes deal during PM’s official visit
A Royal Group subsidiary has signed a deal with two Vietnamese firms to import fertiliser, a senior official with the company said yesterday. Among several deals agreed to during Prime Minister Hun Sen’s trip to Vietnam this weekend, Nitrogen Chemicals and Fertilizer Cambodia Ltd, the subsidiary ...
Chan Muy Hong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/royal-group-makes-deal-during-pm%E2%80%99s-official-visit
EU clarifies rice comments
While the European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht never told the Ministry of Commerce that Cambodian rice was “30 per cent” mixed with the same product from Vietnam, he did say Cambodia had to better ensure that its harvest was homegrown and not from ...
Eddie Morton and May Kunmakara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/eu-clarifies-rice-comments
Rice Trader Claims Being Wrongly Fined Bad Scale to Measure Her Truck
A rice trader on Monday filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Unit, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet and three ministries alleging that officials in Kompong Cham province had wrongly fined her for an overweight truck after using improperly weighted scales. Saing Darlin had her truck impounded ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/rice-trader-claims-being-wrongly-fined-bad-scale-to-measure-her-truck-49631/
Cambodia Rejects Rice Contamination Claims by EU
The Cambodian government and rice exporters have dismissed allegations that rice exports to the European Union (EU) countries are contaminated with rice from Vietnam. Commerce Ministry representative told local sources that while it is true that some Cambodia rice is processed in Vietnam to match ...
Oryza News Staff
http://oryza.com/news/cambodia-rejects-rice-contamination-claims-eu