Cambodian farmers squeezed out

Cambodians like pork. The average Cambodian consumes 9.29 kilogrammes of the meat a year and local farmers have long supplemented their incomes by selling an average of two pigs a year. In 2008, Cambodian farmers supplied around 2 million pigs, more than 90% of domestic demand. But the market for small-scale pig farmers is vanishing. Most of the pork local people now eat is imported from Thailand, or comes from large-scale producers who have seized the market once dominated by local farmers. Though bad for the farmers, the changes have been good for consumers: live pig prices have fallen 53.5% to about 7,000 riel (53 baht) per kilogramme in just one year, pork industry executives say. Since last year, about 30% of all subsistence pig farmers have called it quits, and if the government is unable to stem the flood of cheap pork from Thailand, they will be completely wiped out in five years, said Prathna Preap, a swine market expert at the USAID-funded micro, small and medium enterprise strengthening project…

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/314912/cambodian-farmers-squeezed-out