Agricultural production

PHNOM PENH — China’s Hainan Ruijin Investment Holding Group planned to invest in rice plantation, cow farm and tourism development in Cambodia, the group’s chairman Pan Xiaoping said Wednesday. Pan said during a meeting with Heng Samrin, president of Cambodia’s National Assembly that his company decided to establish an overseas branch office in Cambodia to focus on the threeprojects. Pan did not say when the projects will be started. Heng Samrin pledged full support for those projects, which he said will be good to boost thedevelopment of Cambodia’s economy. “Foreign investment is a key factor to accelerate economic development in Cambodia,” he said.   ...

Shandong Shantui, a Chinese firm and one of the largest manufacturers of heavy construction machinery and largest producer of bulldozers has expressed an interest in investing in Cambodia’s agricultural sectors. General Manager Cheng Zhaohong met with Cambodia’s National Assembly President Heng Samrin yesterday morning to present the company’s ...

A group of families whose homes are in the way of a municipal road-widening project rejected an offer from city hall on Friday to re­­­locate and receive financial compensation, representatives from the community said. Located on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in Tuol Kork district, community ...

Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), a Cambodian agricultural organisation, will collect US$20 million from the Kingdom’s farmers through 2022 in an attempt to accumulate capital for organic rice production. Oun Sophal, president of CEDAC’s Farmer Network from Kampot province’s Dang Tong ...

In a rare victory for those battling to preserve Prey Lang forest, the government has cancelled four economic land concessions in the area totalling more than 40,000 hectares that threatened pristine ecosystems. Another 3,200 hectare ELC in Koh Kong province has also been cancelled, while two ...

A sugar company originally part-owned by ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat that has long fought villagers over a land dispute in Koh Kong province is now under the complete control of two foreign-owned companies, statements released by the firms last week reveal. The Mitr Pohl ...

Nineteen families from Pursat province’s Prangil commune, plagued by a long-running land dispute with developer Pheapimex, are in despair now that student volunteer surveyors cannot help them reclaim land they say is rightfully theirs. Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday revealed he had revised his ...

A new long-term project aims to boost fish stocks in rice fields. That was not a typo. For years, rice farmers in Cambodia have swept up fish – as well as frogs, snails and other aquatic fauna – that make their way from streams, canals and ...

Cambodia’s top economy builders are looking to bring back Thai investment that has departed the country since the onset of political clashes involving Preah Vihear temple in northern Cambodia. Officials at the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) yesterday hosted 30 delegates from the Thai ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday postponed the hearing of a controversial case against a Thai-owned sugar company that more than 200 families alleged had taken their land for the company’s sugar plantations, lawyers and village representatives said yesterday. Ny Sorphornneary, the lawyer for the families, ...

Sugar factories from Tay Ninh Province have spent over VND110 billion (US$5 million) to plant sugar cane in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng Province for the 2012-2013 crop, said the Tay Ninh People’s Committee. Vietnamese sugar producers have planted the crops in Cambodia as sugar cane in ...

Consumer prices in Phnom Penh grew just 1.8 percent year-on-year in the month of June, the lowest increase in almost two years, as food and gas prices remained stable, according to figures released yesterday by the Ministry of Planning. In its monthly inflation report, the ministry ...

More than six years after a sugar company bulldozed their farms in Koh Kong province, some 200 families who have held out ever since, arguing the action was illegal, will finally get their day in court on Thursday. 100 villagers will join them at the ...

A law on the management of farmland currently being drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture is a threat to private landowners as it imposes criminal penalties for farmers who do not abide by new powers the government would have to demarcate land, a human rights ...

About 20 families in Koh Kong province are accusing provincial authorities and military police of blocking them from farming on land that is part of a dispute with a Chinese development firm stretching back almost five years. The rice farms are in Botum Sakor district, which ...

At some point during the planting season this year, Pheap Srey Ngoun will leave her garment factory floor for a rice paddy in Cambodia’s Prey Veng province. Like many fellow garment workers she will leave her position, with permission from the factory, to lend a hand ...

While Mam Sonando lay in a cramped Prey Sar prison cell yesterday, sweating out a fever, some 100 members of the Association of Democrats burned incense and kneeled in prayer at the Preah Ang Dang Keu shrine, calling for the outspoken Beehive Radio director’s release. With ...

A draft agricultural land law threatens to eliminate property rights and effectively remove all limitations on the size of economic land concessions, a coalition of civil society groups said in a statement released.The draft of The Law on the Management and Use of Agricultural Land, ...

Villagers locked in a land dispute in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district no longer pose a secessionist threat, and those remaining in the contested area will receive new plots of land on which to live, the district governor said yesterday. District governor Chhe Chhiv said that ...

Two months after government security forces evicted hundreds of families from Kratie’s Broma village at gunpoint, residents who were permitted to remain there took their first steps toward legal land tenure. Scores of volunteers last week began to collect data of families in Chhlong and Snuol ...

More than a hundred supporters of imprisoned Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando gathered at the Preah Ang Dang Keu Shrine in front of the Royal Palace yesterday morning to offer prayers for his release. Sporting shirts printed with photos of Mr. Sonando, the group lit candles ...

Ministry of Interior officials announced yesterday that three more villagers accused of involvement in a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province turned themselves in and confessed their guilt on Saturday, taking advantage of the prime minister’s offer of immunity for those who agree to act as ...

Cassava plantings in Battambang province dropped more than 18 per cent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2011, according to agriculture officials. The decease is a result of that previous year’s yield fetching a low price and farmers ...

The Cambodian government has cancelled a 14,981-hectare concession in the Cardamom mountains granted to an Australian firm for a banana plantation, the conservation group Wildlife Alliance has reported. Wildlife Alliance has long lobbied against the concession in Koh Kong province’s southern cardamom forest on which Indochina ...