Agriculture

More than 15 months after a Global Witness report revealed that Vietnam’s state-owned rubber giant had illegally cleared land and displaced communities in Cambodia, the company has announced that it will accept and respond to complaints from those whose lives it has damaged. Vietnam Rubber Group, ...

Days after the Australian government announced it had approved the export of 10,000 live cows to Cambodia, a local firm has revealed that it is nearing completion of the Kingdom’s first modern slaughterhouse in Preah Sihanounk province – and that it is set to be ...

The director of a Vietnamese company hoping to buy timber off a pair of land concessions has accused three local businessmen of cheating her out of $200,000 and asked Prime Minister Hun Sen to investigate, according to a letter published by local media. ...

Cambodia has approximately 1.9 million agricultural households with about 8.5 million people, or 57 percent of the country’s 14.96 million people, according to the first-ever agriculture census report released on Wednesday. “The 1.9 million agricultural households were engaged in growing of crops that were undertaken in ...

AUSTRALIAN live cattle exporters today warmly welcomed news that Cambodia is the latest market to open for Australian live cattle exports. Australian and Cambodian government veterinary authorities have reached agreement on animal health certification requirements, paving the way for the start of trade in feeder and ...

A 67-year-old woman from Kampot province was arrested Wednesday for attempting to prevent a construction company from clearing land she says belongs to her, police said. The arrested woman, Hin Srin, is part of a group of 12 families in Kompong Trach district who have been ...

ANZ has ruled out helping hundreds of poor Cambodian families forcibly evicted from their land to make way for sugar-cane plantations that involved child labour and led to food shortages. Fairfax Media this year revealed confidential audits that disclosed that ANZ’s Cambodian subsidiary, ANZ Royal Bank, ...

The Ministry of Planning is to release today preliminary results of Cambodia’s first agricultural industry census, which promises to provide the biggest ever snapshot of the key sector. According to a press release issued yesterday by the ministry, the census’ preliminary results will include the number ...

The number of people charged in land disputes across the country so far this year has already surpassed the number of charges in all of 2013 in what rights group Adhoc on Tuesday called an “alarming” increase in legal action against those wrapped up in ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen used a speech at a food security seminar Monday to once again stress the need for Cambodia to develop modern irrigation facilities to better exploit the land and meet growing food requirements. Speaking from his office building in Phnom Penh, Mr. Hun ...

China will work with Cambodian officials to broaden the range of agricultural products that the Asian economic giant allows to be imported from the Kingdom, government officials said yesterday. Ken Ratha, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, confirmed that China’s General Administration, Quality Supervision, Inspection and ...

About 100 villagers who lost land to a sugarcane plantation, which was until recently financed by ANZ Royal Bank, traveled to Phnom Penh to protest in front of the bank’s headquarters Thursday, but failed to convince the bank to help them. Several hundred families in Kompong ...

A day after three of their community members were arrested following a violent encounter with police, about 50 villagers from Kompong Chhnang province forged ahead with a peaceful march toward Phnom Penh on Wednesday, but were temporarily blocked by police officials in Russei Keo district. The ...

Cambodia exported 204,000 tons of milled rice in the first seven months of 2014, down 1.6 percent from 207,370 tons over the same period of last year, according to official data released on Tuesday.  Sixty-four companies have brokered Cambodian rice for 54 countries and regions around ...

A Thai sugar company with major shares in Cambodian sugar cane is being investigated for human rights violations in operations along the border between the two countries. The National Human Rights Commission of Thailand recently investigated allegations that villagers were forced from their homes to make ...

The U.N.’s human rights representative in Cambodia visited ethnic Bunong villagers in Mondolkiri province this week, days after local authorities prevented hundreds of them from marching to mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. Wan-Hea Lee met with villagers in Pech Chreada district’s Bosra commune ...

Three men embroiled in a land dispute with a company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem were arrested Tuesday while marching with about 50 fellow villagers from Kompong Chhnang province’s Lor Peang village to Phnom Penh. The villagers planned to walk ...

A Vietnamese rubber plantation in Ratanakkiri province repeatedly accused of encroaching on the land of local residents agreed to stop demarcating more land Monday after being confronted by a group of villagers who accused the firm of breaching a deal the two sides reached earlier ...

The Chinese government-run China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO) will today formally agree to import 100,000 tonnes of rice from Cambodia, local officials say. Representatives from COFCO and Green Trade Co, a Cambodian government-owned agriculture firm, today met in Beijing to sign the agreement, ...

The latest case of scores of villagers from Kratie province tied up in a land dispute with an ag­ribusiness firm has once again highlighted failures in the 2012 land-titling scheme launched by Prime Minister Hun Sen to settle unresolved land disputes and distribute hundreds of ...

The Council of Ministers has granted farmers in Kompong Thom province permission to start farming on the floodplains of the Tonle Sap lake in an area previously off limits and home to flooded forests that provide a critical fish breeding habitat. The Council of Ministers’ notice, ...

Villagers caught in a land dispute with a minister’s wife gathered outside Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court for a third consecutive day on Thursday, demanding the release of two men jailed over a clash with workers from the well-connected agriculture firm KDC. ...

ANZ is facing calls for compensation over its funding of a Cambodian sugar mill linked to child labour, forced evictions and land grabs. Media reports on Monday said hundreds of Cambodian farmers had called on the bank to provide compensation for the land they lost due ...

Cambodia is vying for a share of the Philippines’ latest rice import tender of 500,000 tons, according to Thon Virak, general-director of state-owned Green Trade Company. ...