Project to improve poor farmers’ livelihood wraps up

Friday, 20 June 2008
Touch Yuthea
The Mekong Times

A five-year project aimed at improving the livelihoods of poor farmers in southern Cambodia has had a positive impact on the economy, according to Yang Saing Koma, director of the Center for Studies and Development of Cambodian Agriculture (CEDAC).

Yang Saing Koma made the conclusion Thursday in Phnom Penh at a workshop aimed at providing information about the project to government agencies and NGOs.

The project cost approximately US$1.8 million. “We have helped poor farmers from 14,200 families to improve their ability to support their families … This is a great achievement,” he said. “We have noticed that before one family could only earn around 1.4 million riel [around US$350] a year. However … people’s revenues have increased to 2.6 million riel [around US$650] a year, or an increase of around 80 percent.”

CEDAC also strengthened the capacity of farmers to transport their products to markets and to collect revenues for the future expansion of their businesses in communities of 192 targeted villages CEDAC was working on, he said.

The project offered agricultural services and resources through direct support from NGOs, an unidentified ADB representative said. “The project also emphasized the participation of rural women in income-generating activities.”

The project took place in five targeted provinces – Kampong Cham, Prey Veng, Svay Rieng, Kampong Chhnang and Takeo. “If such a project is expanded to other provinces, it will be able to further improve more rural people’s living standard through incomes [they earn] and reduce the gap between the rich and the poor,” Ith Nody, undersecretary of state of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said at the workshop.

The project was a joint project between Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and CEDAC. It was financially supported by the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction through Asian Development Bank.

Farmer Poverty Reduction Reviewed

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
19 June 2008

Click here to listen to the audio program in Khmer

Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and other government offices met Thursday to discuss the progress of an Asian Development Bank grant aimed at raising Cambodian farmers out of poverty.

The Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, a $1.8 million, five-year program financed by the Japanese government, seeks to give farmers more access to technology, infrastructure and other agricultural resources.

The program targeted impoverished farmers in five provinces in southern Cambodia.

Farmers from 14,200 families have seen changes in their living conditions thanks to the program, said Yong San Koma, president of the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture.

"Among those families, about 80 percent earned from 1.4 million riel per year to 2.6 million riel per year," he said.

Farmers earned money by producing rice, raising chickens, pigs and vegetables for sale in local markets and joining community savings programs.

Thursday's workshop was a discussion of the results of the program, where district authorities "learned a lot," Yong San Koma said, because they were shown surprising ways that farmers increased their livelihood.

The government now has a strategy to work with farmers to help them bring their goods to market, Yong San Koma said. The money they earned is recycled into the community, he said. Such earnings will reduce the government's dependence on donor countries.

The organization is planning courses for the younger generation of farmers to pass on their knowledge to others, he said.

Community Participation Tapped To Improve Condition In Poor Cambodian Provinces

December 21, 2007
Paul Icamina - AHN News Writer

Tonle Sap, Cambodia (AHN) - Community participation to drive development is the centerpiece of an ambitious project aimed to improve the conditions of one of Cambodia's poorest provinces surrounding Tonle Sap Lake.

The Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction will provide a $1.5 million grant for the Building Community Capacity for Poverty Reduction Initiatives in the Tonle Sap Basin. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will manage the funding.

"Building the capacity of the communities through the proposed grant will be crucial to accelerate poverty reduction in the Tonle Sap Basin," said Urooj Malik, Director of ADB's Southeast Asia Department.

Tonle Sap Lake is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and directly benefits 40 percent of Kampong Chhang, Kampong Thom and Pursat provinces that adjoin the lake.

Its waters flow between the lake and the Mekong River. Many of the people in the lowland rural communities that surround Tonle Sap depend on its waters for agriculture.

Despite the richness of the lake, the Tonle Sap region has the highest poverty rate in Cambodia at 38 percent.