Using pepper to fight prostitution

Cris Peterson and Tom Gordon with their new dog Ranger. A border collie mix that was saved from the animal shelter in Downey and trained by a Cambodian prisoner at the Youth Correctional Ficility in Norwalk. (THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER)

The basic goal of the Pepper Project: sell Kampot pepper as cheaply as possible and donate proceeds to the Daughters of Cambodia, an organization that rescues young people from the sex trade. (TOM GORDON, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER)

Some of the Pepper Project products for sale at a cooking demonstration at the Xanh Bistro in Fountain Valley. The event was the first big funraiser for the project that benefits the Daughters of Cambodia, a grup that rescues girls fromt he sex trade in Phnom Penh.

The bags The Pepper Project uses for it's Kampot pepper are made by the Daughters of Cambodia. They are crafted from traditional Cambodian material.

It started with Kampot pepper. (TOM GORDON, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER)

July 1, 2011
BY TOM GORDON
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER (California, USA)

For more information

• Pepper Project: www.pepperproject.org or www.facebook.com/pepperproject
• Daughters of Cambodia: www.daughtersofcambodia.org
• Kampot Pepper Promotion Association: www.kampotpepper.biz/en/apgi.html

The Daughters of Cambodia operates a small gift shop on Street 178 in Phnom Penh. It's across the street from the University of Fine Arts.

Upstairs is a cafe, Sugar 'n Spice, that serves coffee, sandwiches and desserts.

Employed there are young ladies and men, mostly in their early 20s. They smile a lot and wear matching t-shirts. They are eager to do a good job.

Not too long ago they all worked in Cambodia's sex trade: brothels, karaoke bars or hostess bars. They often start them young in Cambodia. Surrounded by violence and disease, they usually don't last long.

The Pepper Project for Cambodia

June 9, 2011
Los Angeles Times

The Pepper Project is a nonprofit organization committed to establishing a market for Cambodian products in the United States. Founders Cris Peterson and Tom Gordon decided to pursue this project as a means to help Cambodian pepper farmers reestablish themselves after the civil war.

Kampot black pepper is an intense pepper with a strong aroma. According to the Pepper Project, the pepper is grown organically and each pouch is traceable to the grower. Kampot pepper is the only Cambodian product that is protected by geographical indication, a sign of an authentic product.

The project is currently working with other nonprofits such as Daughters of Cambodia and the International Princess Project. Both of these organizations provide job training to former sex workers so that they can live and work independently in their communities. The Pepper Project purchases bags, pouches and punjammies (100% cotton pajamas made in India) from them.

For more information on this organization or to purchase products, visit http://www.pepperproject.org.

From pain, pepper - and a plan - sprout

That's me in the middle.PHARY, FOR THE REGISTER

The kids at a candy stand outside of Kampong Trach.

Here are a couple reasons we love Cambodia. These kids live in a village outside of Kep that harvests sea salt.

Dec. 30, 2010
BY TOM GORDON
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER (California, USA)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Tom Gordon, an editor at The Register, is starting a nonprofit that will sell Cambodian pepper in the United States. The money raised will help a group that works to help retrain former sex workers in Cambodia This is the last of a three-part story.

I learned something in 2010.

I learned that your life – no matter how orderly and planned – can be turned upside down in seconds.

On the afternoon of May 13 I was sitting at my desk at The Register's Anaheim office doing what I normally do: supervising coverage of murderers, child molesters, traffic accidents, gas leaks and the like. I got message from photographer Bruce Chambers about a traffic accident that had closed Main Street at Sycamore in West Orange.

Close to my house, I thought.

Bruce was on the way. It was one of a dozen accidents we cover during the course of a week.

A few minutes later I got a call from the trauma center at the UCI Medical Center.

They told me my wife had been out walking the dog, waiting at a stoplight, when two cars collided. One car jumped the curb and hit her. Cris was thrown on to the hood of a Dodge Neon and cracked the windshield with her head. Worse, her foot somehow had been caught underneath.

The result: a compound fracture of the left ankle, a broken right leg, more than 60 stitches (the doctors called it de-gloving) to the left side of her foot, and the loss of her left big toe.

She went from the trauma center to the emergency room to surgery and six days at UCI. Then, home where she slowly advanced from a wheelchair to a walker to crutches to a cane. Now, we are at the limp stage.

That brings us to Kampot Pepper Project.

RUNT OF LITTER

Cris and I have an ongoing love affair – with Southeast Asia.

In 1970, I served in a platoon in the 101st Airborne Division that secured downed helicopters. I can't really say the love affair started then. About 10 years ago Cris and I took our first trip together to Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. After that, every year was someplace different and exotic: Thailand, Laos, Bali, Vietnam, Cambodia...

Cambodia is special. It's kind of the runt of the litter. While most of the other nations of Southeast Asia are forging ahead, Cambodia lags.

It's a beautiful country with special people and a tortured history.

A couple years ago we visited a pepper farm – they call them plantations but we are not talking "Gone With the Wind" – in the Kampot province of southwest Cambodia. Mostly small, poor, family-run operations, the farmers work in sweltering humidity to produce their crops

The visit was humbling. It's hard not to be touched when a pepper farmer's wife offers you a bowl of soup cooked over the gas produced from a mixture of cow dung and water.

Back in Orange County, while Cris was perched on the sofa recovering, we came up with an idea: sell Kampot pepper in the U.S. We loved the pepper and wanted to do something – even something small – for the people of Cambodia. Things kind of snowballed.

We hatched the idea with Cris more or less bedridden and me off from work for almost two months. During that time I supposed our priorities changed as well. Things that seemed important before the accident suddenly became less so.

I'll give it to you straight: We had no idea what we were doing. I know news and Cris knows design.

But, amazingly, things started to come together. Hours of planning and research and countless phone calls and e-mails started to pay off.

I even sent a couple of e-mails to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Now, Hun Sen may have been too busy to respond, but a lot of really important (and smart) people did.

17 HOURS TO CAMBODIA

So, in November, with Cris getting around better, I left for Cambodia. Physically she wasn't up to the trip, and Cambodia is not the place to be if you might need medical attention. The 17-hour flight would have been too much.

The basic goal: to secure a steady supply of pepper from an out-of-the-way corner of Cambodia and arrange for former prostitutes to make the packaging.

Pepper wasn't my only mission while I was in Cambodia.

We had purchased school supplies, backpacks and small toys at the 99 Cent store in Santa Ana to deliver to the children in a village that harvests sea salt near Kep on Cambodia's west coast. These are kids who have probably never used a tooth brush and don't attend school. I brought them photos from our last visit.

In my job I come in contact with a lot of tragedy and pain. I don't let it get to me. But when I left that village, I had tears in my eyes.

The next stop was a rural health center near the pepper farms.

Cris had been saving unused bandages and other medical supplies from the home-health nurses at St. Joseph's and the orthopedic clinic at UCI Medical Center.

I delivered them on a Sunday. The doctor in Kampong Trach made a special trip in on his motorbike. He showed me around his clinic as chickens roamed the yard and patients sat outside on wooden platforms.

Dr. Peou Sary does what he can with the supplies he has. "This is a poor hospital," he explains. "The hospitals in the city have all the money and get medical supplies."

He gave me his phone number. He doesn't have e-mail.

Over the next few days I will tell our story. There will be no ending.

For close to 40 years in the news business I have tried to remove myself from stories. I have never written in the "first person" before.

But this is different. It seems like a good time to start.

He brings home a suitcase full of pepper

Traditionally, pepper is grown on wooden stakes. Starling Farm built these brick towers which last longer than the wood and support more vines.

Kampot pepper ripned on the vine. COURTESY HIM ANNA, STARLING FARM

Kampot pepper is organically grown and the farmers use many of the same techniques as their ancestors.

Dec. 30, 2010
BY TOM GORDON
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER (California, USA)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Tom Gordon, an editor at The Register, is starting a nonprofit that will sell Cambodian pepper in the United States. The money raised will help a group that works to help retrain former sex workers in Cambodia This is the last of a three-part story.

Pol Pot killed one, maybe two million people back in the 1970s. Pol Pot liked killing people.

But evidently he didn't like pepper. Pol Pot ordered acres of pepper vines in the Kampot province of western Cambodia ripped out and rice planted in its place.

History has not been kind to Pol Pot.

On the other hand, Chef Oge Dalken, who is creating the menu for the soon-to-open Chapter One: the modern local restaurant in downtown Santa Ana, is a big fan of Kampot pepper.

"The pepper is damn good – and you can say damn good because that's the way I feel about. I am using it as the basic seasoning in all my dishes," says Chef Dalken. He has plans to use Cambodian pepper on duck, New York steaks and possibly in a martini.

Haley Nguyen, who owns the Xanh Bistro at Brookhurst and Edinger in Fountain Valley, tasted Kampot pepper and pronounced it "spicy." Chef Nguyen knows pepper. She teaches cooking at Saddleback and Cypress colleges and hosts culinary tours of Vietnam and Cambodia every year.

"The Kampot pepper has an intense peppery flavor that others lack. I prefer using it whole or cracked in my shrimp paste wrap sugar cane, the sweetness of shrimp with a sudden crunch of the whole pepper corn adds texture and more life to this traditional Vietnamese dish," she says.

In the coming months there will receptions at Xanh and Chapter One to introduce Kampot pepper to Orange County.

For centuries, Kampot pepper has been grown in the hills of western Cambodia. Much of it was exported to the finest restaurants in France. To this day, the French are the biggest foreign users of Kampot pepper.

A few years ago, my wife Cris and I visited a pepper farm. They call them plantations but they are really just small patches of cleared jungle with a few dozen vines and a wooden shack where the family lives. The roots of Kampot pepper farming go back for centuries and little has changed over the years.

It's not an easy life.

There's the heat, the lack of infrastructure in Cambodia, and the isolation. Most of the farms lack even basic conveniences. Much of their cooking is done by creating gas from a mixture of cow dung and water. The lighting comes from small solar lanterns. Bed is a hammock in the corner.

Only 118 families grow Kampot pepper today.

ONLY IN KAMPOT

Like Champagne, which is only produced in a designated region of France, Kampot pepper can only come from a small area. The Kampot Pepper Promotion Association, a small group of farmers and marketers, makes sure the crop is organic and only from the Kampot/Kep region. This geographic designation took years to establish. The farmers are very proud of their product.

What makes Kampot pepper different from the pepper at your local supermarket?

Cheh Luu Meng of the upscale Malis restaurant in the Cambodia capital of Phnom Penh, is downright poetic: "The aroma releases fresh, minty, elements... reminiscent of heavy wood and wet forest... (it) lingers on the palate and remains in the minds of my guests."

To me it's just really tasty and very peppery. It's different.

Kampot pepper had quite a history. It was first noted by Chinese explorers in the 13th Century. By 1900, Kampot pepper was exported by the ton to France, where it was used in the finest restaurants.

Then along came Pol Pot.

The industry is just starting to make a comeback.

In November, with Cris recuperating from an auto accident, I traveled to Phnom Penh, and on to Cambodia's west coast to buy some Kampot pepper.

It was our goal to start selling the pepper in the U.S, secure a steady future supply and help former workers in Cambodia's sex trade.

I had help.

Hin Pidour, of the Kampot Pepper Association, arranged a meeting with local officials and farmers in the organizations bare-bones office. I got a tour of Ngon Proeung's farm and bought 30 pounds of Kampot pepper from him to carry home in my suitcase. That would get things started.

Pidour knows some English but most of the others only spoke Khmer. My Khmer consists of about eight words (and I often refer to my cheat sheet to recall those).

Enter Phary. His business cards list him as "Phary the Tuk Tuk driver."

In Cambodia, a tuk tuk is a small motorbike with a covered trailer attached to haul people on short trips. Cris and I knew Phary from a previous visit and consider him a friend. He's a hustling businessman with plans for his family and the future. Besides getting me where I needed to go, Phary acted as my interpreter.

The Pepper Association put me in contact with Him Anna back in Phnom Penh who operates Starling Farm on the border of Kep and Kampot provinces. Just the week before, Anna had received her official Kampot pepper designation. I was her first customer.

After 12 days of meetings, several five-hour bus rides between Phnom Penh and Kampot, many hot, dusty tuk tuk rides, visits with farmers, and securing some Cambodian-made packaging, I was ready to return home – my suitcase filled with Kampot pepper. All I had to look forward to was 17-hour flight and a date with U.S. Customs.

Wonderful.

MARKED MAN

Ross Meador, an international trade lawyer from Chino Hills who has lived all over Asia, volunteered his time to try and help clear the way for me.

He contacted U.S. Customs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state officials. "Declare it" was his advice, as long as it's dried there should be no problem. "It's all part of the adventure," were his parting words.

If I didn't declare it, he warned, I faced a $300-$1,000 fine and they would likely confiscate the pepper. "Not good,' he warned.

So much for sneaking 30 pounds of Kampot pepper through Customs.

On the declaration form I checked "yes" to carrying food and plants, to being on a farm recently and having goods destined for business purposes. I was a marked man.

It actually went pretty smooth. I did get singled out and my bags were directed to a huge X-ray machine. The Customs agent thought it odd that someone would be carrying 30 pounds of pepper but waved me through.

I was now the proud owner of 30 pounds of red, white and black Kampot pepper and had a partner who could send me more when I needed it.

As Champagne is to France, Kampot pepper is to Cambodia

Ngnoun Lay holds pepper from a Kampot plantation. “When I stopped being a soldier I went to grow pepper like my ancestors,” says the president of the Kampot Pepper Farmers’ Association, standing among ripening plants that tower over him on wooden poles. (Photo: Jared Ferrie)

The Cambodian government recently approved 'geographical indication' status for Kampot ground pepper, which Parisian chefs have called the best in the world.

June 23, 2010
By Jared Ferrie, Contributor
The Christian Science Monitor
Kampot, Cambodia

After he grew tired of fighting on the government side of Cambodia’s civil war and left the Army in 1993, Ngnoun Lay knew exactly what he wanted to do.

“When I stopped being a soldier I went to grow pepper like my ancestors,” says the president of the Kampot Pepper Farmers’ Association, standing among ripening plants that tower over him on wooden poles.

Pepper has been cultivated in this region since at least the 13th century. But the spice’s heyday came much later, under French rule. Parisian chefs considered it the best in the world for its uniquely strong yet delicate aroma and its slightly sweet, eucalyptus taste. At the turn of the 20th century, Cambodia was exporting around 17.6 million lbs. a year, according to FarmLink, a company working with farmers to create a niche gourmet market in Europe.

Under the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79), the industry was completely destroyed and has yet to regain anything close to its former glory.

But farmers in Kampot recently got a boost when the Cambodian government approved geographical indication status for their product. (GI provides a guarantee of quality standards and assurance that a product comes from a particular region.)

Kampot has a microclimate ideal for growing pepper, as well as specialized cultivation techniques that have been passed down for generations, says Jerome Benezech, director of FarmLink. He says GI status will help to stop traders selling pepper from other regions under the Kampot brand. And it will mean higher profits for Kampot farmers, because GI appeals to consumers willing to pay a premium.

Mr. Benezech says Kampot may never produce the volume of pepper it did a century ago – the province exported only 6,600 lbs. last year – but he and the farmers hope for a steady rise “To increase the volume exported today to a couple of hundred tons would be very profitable for everybody, for the province and the farmers,” he says.

Cambodia pepper, palm sugar get GI status

Kampot pepper

April 05, 2010

PHNOM PENH (Commodity Online) : Cambodia has geographically registered Kampot pepper and Kampong Speu palm sugar as an attempt to protect cultural traditions in certain areas and guard against fraudulent labelling of items intended for export.

According to Cambodia’s Commerce ministry, the products were given geographical indication (GI) status, which brands products based on the areas for which they are famous, as in the case of Champagne.

The registrations of Kampot pepper and Kampong Speu palm sugar were a first step in preventing the fraudulent production of imitations, it said.

The pepper and sugar are the first of six products developed with support from France’s Gret, a professional solidarity and international cooperation association, and others since 2004.

Cambodia also palns to register four more commodities such as Siem Reap prahok, or fish paste, Battambang rice, Phnom Srok silk, from a region of Banteay Meanchey province, and Pursat cardamom.

CAMBODIA: Pepper Farmers Get Ready for their Champagne Moment

A woman dries Kampot peppercorns in the sun near Kampong Trach town, Kampot province, southern Cambodia. (Credit:Robert Carmichael/IPS)

By Robert Carmichael

PHNOM PENH, Dec 8 (IPS) - Under a shady trellis of rice sacks in the province of Kampot in southern Cambodia, 42-year-old Nuon Yan tends his crop of pepper vines.

Small-scale farming is a tough occupation, with prices and weather unpredictable and the cost of inputs high. But Nuon Yan knows a good idea when he sees one. When he heard about an opportunity to double the money he was making from black pepper, he jumped at it.

That opportunity is to register the prized variety of pepper that he and neighbouring farmers grow – known as Kampot Pepper – for Geographical Indicator, or GI, status. Kampot pepper is highly regarded by some chefs in Europe and the United States as one of the world’s finest pepper varieties.

If the term GI sounds unfamiliar, the concept itself is much better understood, says Jean-Marie Brun, an advisor at GRET, a French non- governmental organisation involved in getting Kampot pepper its GI status.

The most famous GI product is champagne. In fact, says Brun, GI is what makes champagne champagne rather than sparkling wine. Unless bubbly is grown in a specific part of France to specific rules and meets a certain quality standard, it may not be marketed as champagne.

That, in a nutshell, is GI, and it will work exactly the same way with Kampot pepper. The added advantage is that Nuon Yan and the 130 other members of the newly formed Kampot Pepper Producers’ Association (KPPA) – most of whom are also farmers – decide on the rules and the quality standard.

Brun says any grower who meets the requirements can join the association, and once GI is registered it is protected under World Trade Organisation rules.

"The right to use the name Kampot pepper once it is registered belongs to anybody that complies with a certain number of requirements," says Brun. "The stakeholders decide on the delimitation of the area, how it should be produced and the quality criteria."

Brun explains that farmers like Nuon Yan, who currently earns 2.50 U.S. dollars per kilo for his crop, will likely double their income when GI status is confirmed.

Complying with GI does bring added costs, but Brun says these typically equate to five percent of the extra income. In the case of Kampot pepper, and because it is early days for the KPPA, the costs of compliance are higher than that – currently around 10 percent – but they will decline as more members join.

Farmers like Nuon Yan benefit as a direct result of providing a product that consumers can buy safe in the knowledge that it has attained a certain quality standard and is what it claims to be. But that assurance is worth nothing unless someone ensures the members abide by their own standards.

That policing role is performed by the KPPA itself and an independent auditor. The KPPA is based in a small room in a shady grove five kilometres outside the provincial town of Kampong Trach in Kampot province. KPPA deputy head, En Trou, explains that growers have had a tough time in the past.

"Because they were not able to market Kampot pepper and didn’t have much money, the farmers faced many problems trying to earn enough to support their families," he says. "We also found that other growers were using the name Kampot pepper on their products."

But the advent of GI status, which will be confirmed in a matter of weeks, should start to resolve that. En Trou is confident that the future will be brighter for the association’s members, who currently harvest 14 tons of pepper annually.

"I am hopeful that in another five years we will have increased the number of producers to 150, and be selling between 20 and 30 tons a year," he says.

The man in charge on the government side is Var Roth San, who heads the intellectual property department at the Ministry of Commerce. Among the powers wielded by his department is the power to revoke the GI registration for Kampot pepper should the independent auditor find the KPPA is shirking its role to maintain standards.

"The association must form control within themselves to keep the quality good," he points out. "Therefore the price of GI products increases. If [there is] no control within themselves or by an international organisation, who will believe [that their product is high quality]?"

Var Roth San says getting GI status for Kampot pepper links directly with the strategy of government and donors to reduce widespread rural poverty. Around 80 percent of the country’s people live in rural areas, and more than half the eight million-strong labour force is involved in agriculture, so boosting rural livelihoods is critical for Cambodia.

"We want to create jobs, and we want our poor to get more money from their work in the rural area," he says. "GI law is one thing that will help the poor in the rural areas."

Although GI for Kampot pepper will benefit at most a couple of hundred farmers, the government plans to roll out the initiative for other products too, including palm sugar from Kampong Speu province and honey from the northeastern province of Ratanakkiri. But Kampot pepper will be the first.

Back on his one-fifth hectare pepper plot in Kampot province, Nuon Yan explains that his rice crop has to date generated more income than the pepper he harvests from his 300 pepper vines. Last year he made around 400 U.S dollars from selling 150 kilograms of pepper.

But he is clearly banking on Kampot pepper’s potential.

"If I can sell my pepper for a higher price, then it is possible that one day I could earn more from pepper than from rice," he says.

Nuon Yan has an eye on that future possibility. He will deposit some of the extra money he will earn in the bank and put the rest towards buying more pepper vines. He and the other members of the association are banking that Kampot pepper’s GI status will result in a more secure future for them and their families.

Cambodian pepper farmers set to gain from 'champagne' status

Dec 4, 2009
By Robert Carmichael
DPA

Kampong Trach, Cambodia - On a small plot of earth 10 kilometres outside a dusty provincial town in southern Cambodia, farmer Nuon Yan tends his crop.

Like most farmers in Cambodia, Nuon Yan grows rice. But today he is tending his other crop: Kampot pepper. The final product - spicy black peppercorns that enliven dishes across the world - will soon become the first Cambodian product to benefit from Geographical Indicator (GI) status.

GI is more familiar as a concept than a phrase, and most famously with champagne: Only sparkling wine grown in a certain region of France which conforms to the quality standard set by its members may be called champagne. The advantage for growers is a better price; consumers benefit knowing that they are getting a quality product.

Cambodia's farmers are a key pillar of the country's economy, and widespread rural poverty means better prices for their crops are essential. UN figures show agriculture employs more than half of the 8-million-strong labour force and generates one-third of the kingdom's gross domestic product.

Kampot pepper, which is named after Nuon Yan's home province near the border with Vietnam, has an excellent name regionally and is highly regarded by some chefs in Europe. But a good name is not enough: in a world of imitations, protecting that name is critical.

Var Roth San is director of the intellectual property department at Cambodia's Ministry of Commerce. He says attaining GI status typically boosts the value of a product by at least 20 per cent.

'We want to create jobs, and we want the poor to get more money from their jobs in the rural areas,' he said. 'GI is one thing that will help the poor.'

Nuon Yan is a member of the newly formed Kampot Pepper Producers' Association, which will market and promote his crop.

It is a cooperative of more than 100 farmers, along with a handful of middlemen. It will ensure the Kampot pepper its members grow comes only from certain areas and meets quality standards. By early 2010, only the pepper produced by its members will be able to use the name.

Jean-Marie Brun, an advisor at the French agricultural non-governmental organisation GRET, said members of the World Trade Organisation are obliged to protect GI-status products. Once a product earns the name and is registered, it can easily be protected.

GRET was involved in the establishment of the cooperative, whose members defined the geographical growing area and quality standards.

'The stakeholders decided on the delimitation of the area, how it should be produced, and the quality criteria for Kampot pepper,' Brun said.

Kampot pepper is not the only Cambodian product in the running. Others vying for GI status include regionally produced palm sugar, honey, silk and possibly even durian fruit.

Brun says the main benefit for the small-scale farmers who comprise the bulk of the cooperative is financial. The current gate price for black pepper is 2.5 dollars per kilogram, but that should double once the GI status is confirmed.

By the time Kampot pepper gets to Europe, where it will be sold in packets of 20 to 50 grams, it can retail at an equivalent of 100 euros (150 dollars) per kilogram.

'Importers of Kampot pepper in Europe know it has a name and they are willing to pay a higher price for that,' Brun explained. The extra profit will allow for increased marketing expenditures.

Protection of the brand rests initially with the association, whose simple office is based in a shady grove outside Kampong Trach town in Kampot province. This is picture-postcard Cambodia: green rice fields, sugar palm trees and karst hills, with wooden carts drawn by white oxen along dirt roads.

The vice-president of the association, En Trou, is a farmer with 150 pepper vines, each providing 1 kilogram of peppercorns per year. En Trou said the total output of the members this year will be 14 tons, but he predicts that will double over the next five years.

En Trou said members have in the past encountered difficulties trying to sell their crops for a decent price, but is optimistic that GI status for Kampot pepper will help.

Four kilometres from the association's office along a series of ever-narrowing dirt tracks, Nuon Yan keeps an eye on his 300 pepper vines. He earned 400 dollars from his crop last year, but aims to double that next year. So what will he do with the extra cash?

'I will put some in the bank, and I will use the rest to buy more pepper vines,' he said.

The vines take three years to mature, so it is no short-term measure. But for Nuon Yan the benefits from ensuring his pepper meets the GI requirements make it worthwhile to invest more time and money on growing Kampot pepper for the kitchens of Europe.

Cambodia's Kampot Pepper Makes a Comeback

Bags of Kampot Pepper for sale by Farmlink-Cambodia

By Rory Byrne
Voice of America
Kampot, Cambodia
16 April 2009

Kampot province in southern Cambodia was long famous for the quality of its pepper. But under the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s, almost all of the province's pepper plantations were uprooted to make way for rice. Now a local company is leading an effort to revive Kampot pepper by earning it Geographical Indication protection, similar to Champagne or Parmesan cheese.

Many French chefs consider Kampot pepper the best in the world.

During the French colonial era, about one million pepper plants were grown in the province, mainly to produce pepper for export to France.

Famed for its strong, yet delicate, aroma, Kampot pepper can range from intensely spicy to mildly sweet.

Jerome Benezech, the director of Farmlink, which is working with local farmers to increase pepper production, says the pepper's unique flavor is thanks to a combination of factors found only in Kampot.

He says Kampot pepper has a distinct flavor. It has a very fresh aroma with hints of eucalyptus and it lingers in the palate. He says its unique flavor is due to the combination of Kampot's rich soil, the climate in this area which is between the mountains and the sea, as well as the experience of several generations of pepper farmers.

Under the Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s, Kampot's famous pepper plantations were uprooted and replaced with rice fields.

But in recent years the spice has been making a comeback and production is once again on the rise.

Farmlink works with 125 local farmers with the aim of doubling pepper production over the next five years.

More than 20,000 pepper vines have been planted since 2003 - still a fraction of the amount produced under the French.

Many pepper farmers like Ngnoun Lay come from generations of pepper growers:

He says since he was born his mother and father grew pepper and now he does the same thing. In fact, he says, they have grown pepper in his family for the last four generations. Whether the price is high or low he stills plant pepper because, apart from growing rice, it is all he has ever known.

Farmlink staff members say that while pepper requires more labor than growing rice, it is more profitable for farmers.

Kampot pepper is the first Cambodian product to apply for Geographical Indication protection similar to Champagne or Parmesan cheese. GI status means that only pepper actually grown in Kampot can use that name.

Angela Vestergaard, Farmlink's marketing director, leads the effort to secure GI status. The aim is to help promote Kampot pepper around the world, and to protect its quality.

She says the GI project will protect the environment in this region and make sure that Kampot pepper keeps its high quality and is not mixed with lesser quality peppers. She says Farmlink wants the consumer to be guaranteed the highest quality and to be sure that what they are getting is authentic Kampot pepper.

Despite the economic slowdown, demand for Kampot pepper is growing, although more slowly than before.

But growers are hopeful that if Kampot pepper can earn GI protection next year, the province can regain its status as one of the world's premier pepper growing regions.

Cambodia seeks special status for Prahok and Kampot Pepper

Cambodia seeks special status for fermented fish cheese, pepper

Thu, 18 Oct 2007
DPA

Phnom Penh - Soon diners around the world may be grinding Kampot pepper on their Siem Reap fermented fish paste and Battambang rice after Cambodia announced it was seeking Geographic Indicator (GI) status for five distinctive regional products. Just as only Nuernberg can boast Nuernberger Lebkuchen - at least under the European Union laws - and only cheese from the Cambalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may bear the name Roquefort, so Cambodia is seeking GI status for five products it deems regionally unique under World Trade Organization (WTO) guidelines.

The intellectual property rights-related legislation was required to be put in place by the WTO after Cambodia gained membership in 2003. The EU and the French Development Agency (AFD) helped Cambodia draw up the legislation.

The EU provided nearly 1 million dollars and AFD donated about 100,000 dollars to help Cambodia draft the GI law and protect intellectual property rights, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Mao Thora, undersecretary of state for the ministry, said the decision to put forward Kampot pepper, Siem Reap prahok or fish cheese, Battambang rice, Kampong Speu palm sugar and Banteay Meanchey silk - products from five different provinces around the country - was an exciting first step in establishing brands.

"When people can identify these products as from a specific area, it will encourage both producers and tourists," he said.

The first product likely to receive GI status is Kampot pepper, named after the coastal province 150 kilometres south-west of the capital, he said.

"By protecting that name, growers will be encouraged to raise more plants and investment should follow," Thora said by telephone.

Jerome Benezech of the Kampot Pepper Farmers Association (KPFA) said GI status would be a major breakthrough but by no means the end of the work which needs to be done.

"It will take several months to formulate policy, and then GI status is just another marketing tool which we need to utilize," he said. "However it's a great chance to strengthen our growers and improve ... quality even further."

He said KPFA works with about 70 pepper farmers in one district of Kampot and knows of at least another 80 farmers, although there are no official figures. Kampot pepper currently retails at about 4 dollars a kilo in local markets and is a sought-after souvenir for tourists.

Kampot pepper has been famed since French colonial times for its pungency and flavour and is already in demand internationally. Cambodia's fermented fish cheese connoisseurs, however, may have a tougher marketing battle before the world clamours for prahok.