Biofuel crops

The U.K.’s fraud office plans to request the extradition of a British national currently detained in Cambodia, after it brought charges against four people for their part in a $36 million Ponzi scheme involving a biofuel plantation. Gregg Fryett was arrested in Phnom Penh in March ...

Villagers in Oddar Meanchey’s Trapaing Prasat district filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc alleging a military official is using armed forces to claim 90 hectares of their land. In their complaint filed with Adhoc earlier this month, the 13 families who claim ownership of the ...

An international group that promotes the ethical sourcing of sugar for the food and energy industries has suspended the membership of U.K. sugar giant Tate & Lyle for failing to answer complaints that it was buying from Cambodian plantations accused of stealing land from local ...

A lawsuit filed by families in Koh Kong province accusing U.K. sugar giant Tate & Lyle of wrongfully profiting off land stolen from them is heading to trial after efforts to mediate a settlement fell through earlier this month, according to those involved. Law firm Jones ...

Sales of Cambodia’s World Trade Organization-certified palm sugar from Kampong Speu province dipped to 12 tonnes at the end of the harvest season this year, about a 30 per cent decline from 2012. Two districts with palm trees in Kampong Speu province were granted geographical indication ...

Chea Kea, owner of the Daimond Crown casino on the border with Thailand in Pailin province, is investing in a $4 million feed processing warehouse that will also be used to store commodities and house farm animals. Construction on the warehouse, which is expected to ...

A London-based sugar trade association aiming to promote a more ethical and sustainable industry will meet early next month to consider a request from Cambodian farmers that it eject U.K.-based sugar firm Tate & Lyle from the group unless it gives them back their land. Some ...

Cassava farmers in Banteay Meanchey province had to import seeds from Thailand this season in response to rapidly-changing weather conditions that interfered with seed growth. Te Haing, a cassava farmer in Banteay Meanchey who planted more than 1,000 hectares this season, told the Post yesterday that ...

Asia’s largest sugar company has been accused of torching hundreds of homes, orchestrating the imprisonment of a pregnant activist and using security forces to beat villagers – among a raft of other grave human rights abuses – by communities in Oddar Meanchey province. The allegations levelled ...

The largest complex of sugarcane, ethanol and thermal power plants in Cambodia was inaugurated in Okrieng commune, Sombour district, Kratie province on May 26. Addressing the ceremony, Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chay Ly emphasized that the complex inauguration in Kratie was the outcome of the ...

Cambodia launched Tuesday the second phase of cassava development project under the support of China and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Cambodia and China signed a Protocol on the Exports of Cambodian Cassava to Chinese Market in December 2010, under which China allowed Cambodia ...

Cambodia’s cassava exports reached 245,438 tonnes in the first quarter this year, a 47 per cent decline quarter-on-quarter, from 465,640 tonnes in the final quarter of last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce released early this month. While most exports went to Thailand, ...

British sugar firm Tate & Lyle has denied knowing of the alleged abuses at two Cambodian plantations accused of illegally driving hundreds of families off their farms and says that the families have no right to ask the company for compensation, according to the firm’s ...

Thailand and Cambodia are on a path towards the setting up of a special trade zone that will see the two neighbors actively trade cassava and corn. Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom revealed on Monday that the 4th Thailand-Cambodia Joint Trade Committee meeting, held last week, saw ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The European Union (E.U.) last year continued to import millions of dollars worth of duty-free sugar from Cambodian plantations that have forced hundreds of families off their land despite calls from European lawmakers for the trade benefits to end, according to the latest E.U. data. Thailand’s ...

The British former Chairman of a troubled biofuel firm, who is in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prision on forgery charges, has claimed he is the victim in the case for which he is awaiting trial. Gregg Fryett was arrested in Phnom Penh on March 23rd and ...

Mondolkiri and Kompong Thom provinces could suffer some of the most extreme effects of climate change in the Lower Mekong Basin region, such as a high incidence of flash floods and droughts by 2050, according to a new study. Analyzing temperature and rainfall from 84 provinces ...

The border trade in Surin province has reportedly reached 1 billion baht for the first time. The figure is said to be the new record high as the situation on the border of Thailand and Cambodia remains calm. Surin’s trade official Sitthiporn Bangkeaw said these ...

A court official said yesterday that the complaint that led to the imprisonment of a British man and two Cambodian staff at a troubled biofuel firm was filed last year by a senior Forestry Administration official. Gregg Fryett, 45, was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit ...

The Japanese government has provided $118,996 for constructing a cassava propagation and distribution centre in Battambang province. The fund comes in response to the recent challenges facing farmers in the province who are facing a shortage of cassava trees to plant. Kumamaru Yuji, Japanese ambassador to ...