Cambodia: Rice politics

Monday, March 23rd, 2009
By Chhunny Chhean
Global Voices Online

Rice is more than a staple of the Cambodian diet. It also implicates land rights, trade and international relations. Some Cambodians are frustrated over land leases to neighboring Vietnam. They are concerned the leases will evolve into ownership changes, resulting in a reduction of Cambodian territory.

Rice is more than a staple of the Cambodian diet. It also implicates land rights, trade and international relations.

A post on The Mirror reveals the frustration of Cambodians, including Cheam Yeap, a Cambodian People's Party official, over land leases to neighboring Vietnam. From the Mirror, citing Cheat Khmer, Vol.1, #40, 18.3.2009:

Thousands of hectares of citizen’s land lying along the Yuon [Vietnamese] border of An Giang Province, bordering Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, are being leased to Yuon companies by Khmer authorities along the Yuon border to grow agro-industry crops. The Phnom Penh Post published an article on 26 February 2009, quoting the Svay Rieng governor, Mr. Cheang Am, that 10,000 hectares of land in Svay Rieng are prepared to be leased to Yuon companies along the border and also, the Prey Veng governor, Mr. Ung Samy, told the Phnom Penh Post that he will discuss with Yuon officials in Yuon [Vietnam] about the leasing of rice fields along the border to Yuon companies to come to do rice cultivation in Khmer territory.

Yeap is concerned the leases will evolve into ownership changes, resulting in a reduction of Cambodian territory. Others, like Prum Soanara, an engineer, thinks the land is best utilized if given to the country's own citizens to cultivate rice.

KI Media highlights the problem of illegally imported rice with an article from the Nation:

The Thai Rice Exporters' Association and the Board of Trade of Thailand (BoT) will soon propose that the Commerce Ministry set up a Public Warehouse Organisation as an “import agency” to oversee rice imports once the Asean Free Trade Area (Afta) eliminates all import tariffs.

The agency would institute measures to protect Thai farmers, such as requiring imported rice only be used for raw purposes in manufacturing. However, exporters are worried such protections encourage those seeking to manipulate the system, thereby increasing the amount of illegally traded rice, including rice grown in Cambodia.

In addition to its practical roles, rice is symbolic of Cambodian culture, as this video shows. This piece from Khmer Civilization involves images of rice from farm to market:

Illegally imported rice from Cambodia find its way into Thai government's subsidy program: The Nation

Call for agency to police rice imports

March 16, 2009
By ACHARA PONGVUTITHAM
The Nation

The Thai Rice Exporters' Association and the Board of Trade of Thailand (BoT) will soon propose that the Commerce Ministry set up a Public Warehouse Organisation as an "import agency" to oversee rice imports once the Asean Free Trade Area (Afta) eliminates all import tariffs.

The proposal is aimed at preventing illegal imports of rice from other Asean countries with the aim of benefiting from Thailand's price-intervention programme.

Currently, both legally and illegally imported rice - the latter mainly from Cambodia - finds its way into the government's subsidy programme.

Thai rice exporters fear that the zero-tariff agreement under Afta will lead to an increase in the amount of illegally imported rice benefitting from the subsidy programme, which would directly affect Thai farmers. For this reason, they seek the creation of import-oversight agency with the power to set up stringent import restrictions and inspect all imported rice.

A source from the BoT said the agency would inspect every shipment of imported rice to prevent unscrupulous dealers from benefiting illegally from the government's rice-pledging programme.

The agency would allow rice to be imported only as a raw material for use in manufacturing - not to be sold as a crop, the source said.

"To protect our farmers, we should not approve rice imports for any other purpose," the source added.

In addition, the agency should be empowered to determine who is allowed to import rice, and in what quantities, the source said.

The source also said the government should consider changing its crop-subsidy programme to give farmers direct cash payments to cover the difference between the pledging price and the market price.

"This would not only directly assist farmers but also reduce the government's loss from its huge stockpile every year," the source said.

However, if the government must implement a price-intervention programme, it should do so based on a fair price that does not lead to market distortions, as is the case now, the source said.

The government's rice price-intervention policy has prompted some Thai rice traders to illegally take advantage of the scheme by importing rice from neighbouring countries such as Cambodia. This illegally imported rice has been substituted for Thai rice in the rice-pledging programme.