Agriculture

The integration of technology into Cambodia’s agricultural sector is vital to increase the competitiveness and overall performance of the Kingdom’s harvest, but efforts to push for widespread adoption of innovative solutions has been slow to take off, industry experts and stakeholders said at a forum ...

The state-owned bank entrusted with extending $27 million in emergency loans to millers to purchase rice paddy has marginally lowered the interest rate on these conditional loans in an effort to shorten some of the strings attached. The Rural Development Bank (RDB) announced late on Sunday ...

The government has asked China to make good on its pledge to buy 200,000 tons of rice annually from the Kingdom and also to speed up the approval of a $300 million loan to the country’s beleaguered rice sector. This request was made yesterday during a ...

Indonesia would consider buying more rice from Cambodia if the price was more competitive, the Indonesian ambassador to Cambodia told reporters after the Indonesian Trade and Tourism Promotion 2016 expo in Phnom Penh on Friday. Ambassador Pitono Purnomo said that Cambodia and Indonesia signed a ...

As the government scrambles to buoy a rice sector suffering from crashing paddy prices and fierce international competition, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday lauded the government officials and “generous businesspeople” who heeded calls for emergency funds. ...

The country’s financial institutions are closely monitoring loans that have been made to rice farmers, who say that this year’s fall in rice prices will affect their ability to make repayments, industry officials said yesterday. Last year, farmers were paid around 840 riel ($0.21) per kilogram ...

As rice farmers struggle to cope with the aftereffects of one of the worst droughts in Cambodia’s recent history and moribund infrastructure makes it difficult to transport and sell their products across the country, universities here and in the United States are joining forces to ...

It’s almost 10 in the morning in Battambang province’s Bavel district and the blazing sun would deter anyone from venturing too far from the cool comfort of their thatched huts in this rice-growing area. But for many families whose livelihoods depend on rice farming, braving the ...

Cambodia’s first experimental farm and research centre for potato cultivation opened yesterday as experts confirmed that the Kingdom’s soils are suitable for the starchy tuber – raising hopes that local crops could one day satisfy the fast-food cravings that have put potatoes in high demand. ...

A day after a state bank called on Cambodians to buy domestically milled rice to help a government scheme to stabilise prices in the sector, multiple ruling party officials were reaching into their own pockets to do just that. The Rural Development Bank – tasked with ...

Rice millers in the country will now be able to access the government’s promised emergency loan of $20 million to purchase paddy rice from farmers in a bid to prevent rice prices from falling further, the Rural Development Bank (RDB) announced yesterday. Rural Development Bank CEO ...

The government-owned bank charged with issuing $27 million in emergency loans to rice millers as part of an initiative aimed at propping up the struggling rice industry announced the terms of the credit lines yesterday, and said it would ensure that the funds were used ...

In the latest effort to mitigate the impact of plummeting rice prices, Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that the government was seeking $300 million from China to boost the capacity of rice millers and provide funds to them for purchasing paddy from farmers. ...

Attempting to call attention to the havoc low rice prices are wreaking on their livelihoods, hundreds of farmers in Battambang’s Sangke district took to the streets yesterday, symbolically pouring rice onto National Road 5. ...

The Cambodia-Thailand border in Pailin province temporarily reopened to various Cambodian agricultural products on Friday after a meeting between provincial authorities on both sides of the border, according to the deputy provincial governor who led the Cambodian delegation. ...

In an effort to appease rice farmers and stimulate rice millers to purchase fragrant rice currently being harvested across the country, the government announced that it had found $27 million to pay for emergency measures. The Ministry of Economy and Finance released a statement on Friday ...

GIZ Cambodia, a branch of Germany’s international development agency, signed an agreement yesterday with local organic food retailer Khmer Organic Cooperative to provide technical support to develop organic vegetable production and to assist the firm in obtaining certification for its products. The agreement calls for the ...

The Cambodia Rice Bank (CRB) will intervene to prevent the price of fragrant rice from falling further by offering to buy the staple grain directly from farmers at the market price of 840 riel (21 cents) a kilogram. The CRB also called on farmers to ...

The Thai Commerce Ministry is looking into existing trade and investment barriers for its “innovative farm products” with Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, with the long-term goal of removing them, according to the Bangkok Post.   ...

As the harvest season of Cambodia’s most important crop kicks off, a crisis is looming as both rice farmers and millers face crippling capital shortages and a promised industry lifeline has yet to materialise. Industry experts said yesterday that these small farmers desperate to pay their ...

Following a Monday announcement from the Agriculture Ministry that provincial officials must ensure that the country’s rice millers pay adequate prices for rice paddy, the ministry followed up yesterday, saying that working groups had started discussing the situation with rice millers and rice farmers. In a ...

The Ministry of Agriculture has taken action to prevent millers from purchasing paddy rice at below market price from farmers, currently struggling to produce enough marketable rice crop to make ends meet. The ministry, in a statement issued on Monday, ordered all provincial agricultural departments to ...

Palm sugar producers in Kampong Speu province say they are ready to scale up and meet demand as global consumer goods giant Unilever looks to source palm sugar for its products from the Cambodian market. Prak Sereywath, president of the Cambodia Institute for Research and Rural ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday that China gave assurances that it will grant greater access for Cambodia’s agricultural products to enter its markets. “It is my mission to ensure that domestic goods, especially agricultural products, can be exported to China in greater quantities. I just ...