Project to examine impact of climate change on rice farming

April, 26 2010
VNS

Nick Austin, CEO of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), spoke to Viet Nam News during his four-day working visit to Viet Nam last week.

What are your main objectives during this visit?

This is my first visit to Viet Nam and my first stop on a trip to several Mekong countries, including Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. During my visit, I have met with local partners of ACIARs research co-operation programmes in Viet Nam in order to get a clearer picture of priorities, policy orientations as well as agricultural development here.

Can you summarise the results of your visit?

The results are very encouraging. I had working sessions with officials from the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Both Viet Nam and Australia have very close alignments in terms of agriculture priorities, including food security, food safety and climate change. These priorities are very closely aligned with those of ACIAR. I also discussed with a number of directors of Viet Nam's leading agricultural research institutes from South to North on how to develop new projects that align with these high-level priorities.

You also took a field trip to the two Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces of Tien Giang and Soc Trang. What did you see?

The visit gave me the opportunity to see first-hand the impacts of climate change in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta on the production system as a whole and on individual farmers. It's particularly important in the delta because about seven million people, all who depend heavily on agriculture, are going to be significantly impacted by climate change. Our projects will target the needs of farmers, particularly in relation to poverty alleviation and food security at the individual farm level. They will take a close look at the impact climate change will have on rice-based farming, and what solutions can be used to ease the challenges posed by increasing salinity, salt water intrusion, flooding, changes in rain patterns and in water viability.

Exciting projects are on the horizon in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta, the first being "Climate change affecting land use in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta: Adaptation of rice-based crop systems", an AUD$4 million (US$3.7 million) project which will start in July. The project will include a geospatial biophysical impact and vulnerability assessment, plant breeding for improved resilience to salinity and submergence, and development of integrated soil, nutrient and water management options.

Along with providing technical solutions to promote better agricultural practices, agribusiness, which is the marketing of agricultural products, is increasingly becoming a focus of ACIAR in Viet Nam. Can you tell us more about it?

While ACIAR will continue to work in forestry, fisheries, horticulture and livestock production, a new programme in Viet Nam will aim at agribusiness. Our programme will focus on how small-holders can gain access to the market. It will involve more Vietnamese institutions with the capability of understanding local economics in partnership with Australian organisations who will provide expertise in value chain and market analysis. We will look at things like market requirements for good agricultural practices, barriers keeping them from the market, and how we can assist small-holder production to begin moving towards better quality assurance and consistency of supply to meet market specifications.

ACIAR has been working with Viet Nam for nearly two decades. How do you evaluate the co-operation in that time?

We are working in a long-term partnership model. Our projects are typically designed to be implemented over three to five years and many of them have been extended. We have also invested in capacity building to help officials in Viet Nam's institutes to earn Masters and PhD degrees. I am glad to see they are now leading new projects in Viet Nam.

The other aspect is that our projects benefit both Viet Nam and Australia. We have the same challenges with climate change, hostile soils and similar crops. Vietnamese researchers are interested and working on similar research questions. Some of our studies demonstrate clear benefits back to Australia as well as Viet Nam. Our most successful projects have mutual benefits for both countries.

For example, food security is a priority of the Australian Government. At a high level, Viet Nam is a major exporter of rice, and at a high level, Australia has benefited from investing in improving and sustaining production and agricultural outputs. At the scientific institution level, there is a very clear benefit in knowledge transfer and common approaches to problems in both countries.

A Global Rice Revolution

A Cambodian farmer, plows in the rice paddy at Prey Kla village, Kampong Speu province, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Aug. 28, 2009. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Friday, 28 August 2009
Written by Michele Cempaka
Asia Sentinel (Hong Kong)

A Jesuit priest transforms centuries-old growing practices

The traditional methods that Asian farmers have used for hundreds of years to grow rice are beginning to give way to what its supporters say are new, environmentally healthier and more productive practices developed in Madagascar by Henri de Laulanie, a Jesuit priest, in the 1980s.

SRI – the universal acronym for what de Laulanie called System of Rice Intensification – didn't begin to spread out of Madagascar until about 1999. But in the past 10 years, farmers from China to India to Indonesia and the Philippines have begun to shift to the new method, which paradoxically involves planting fewer and younger seedlings, spaced wider apart, and using less water than Asian farmers have used for centuries.

The new method is not without its critics, who say it is difficult to replicate dramatically higher yields outside the original plantings in Madagascar. Nonetheless, SRI is estimated to have spread across 400,000 hectares of Tamil Nadu in India. Some 30,000 farmers in Indonesia now practice SRI, more than 100,000 in Cambodia; over 50,000 in Myanmar; 223,000 last year in Vietnam and around 5,000 in Laos. Some 20,000 farmers in the Philippines are estimated to be using SRI.

By changing the management of plants, soil, water and nutrients, SRI is roughly doubling per-hectare yields, which are now about 3.8 tonnes per hectare, according to a 2004 paper by Norman Uphoff, an emeritus professor and director of the Cornell Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development in the United States and SRI's chief advocate.

"When the methods are applied well and so improve the soil, yields can reach 15-20 tonnes per hectare," Uphoff wrote. "SRI practices improve the growing environment of the plant so that any rice genotype can result in different, more productive phenotypes having much larger root systems."

Indonesian farmers, for instance, traditionally have transplanted three-week old seedlings or older, then flooded the fields in a system of irrigation called subak, which also involves intensive fertilizer and chemical pest control agents that cause nitrogen run-off. Fertilizer has long been identified as the dominant source of nitrogen, which is creating "dead zones" where rivers meet the sea.

That is because nitrogen run-off contributes to eutrophication – depletion of oxygen in water which results in the growth of algae, decomposition of other aquatic plants and the death of deep-dwelling fish. The water becomes scum-covered and foul smelling as well as unfit for drinking. Some studies indicate that adults risk contracting a variety of cancers and young infants may develop the potentially fatal 'blue baby syndrome', where their red blood cells cannot function properly, and fail to deliver sufficient oxygen.

The Indonesian government, which subsidizes fertilizer heavily, is pushing for the switch to SRI with the help of a non-government organization called the PPLA. Farmers in eastern Indonesia under a Japanese-funded project cut their fertilizer application by 50 percent compared to what was recommended by the government, according to a paper by Uphoff and a colleague, S. Sato, in 2007. With reduced fertilizer use and a 40 percent reduction in water use, farmers' yields increased by 78 percent (3.3 tonnes/hectare) on average, the two wrote.

"The government has been spending about Rp200 trillion yearly on subsidized fertilizers and they just can't do it any more. With SRI, no fertilizers are needed and the yield is much greater than with conventional irrigation methods," says Chakra Widia, a permaculturist and farmer who has been using SRI on his own rice fields in Bali since 2005.

Seed upgrading is extremely important. And with SRI, it doesn't involve the enormously costly proprietary seedlings developed by agrochemical transnational corporations, which patented genetic modifications and force farmers to buy new seedlings every year.

Chakra Widia has a simple, traditional test to find the best seed:

"First you get a tall jar and fill it with water, then put a fresh duck egg in and begin adding salt up to 1.5 kilos until the egg rises to the top. Remove the egg and put the seeds in the water. The seeds that sink to the bottom are the best. By selecting a good seed it reduces the energy required for managing pest control." Widia says.

Widia estimates that 15 – 20 percent of Bali's farmers now use SRI although many farmers continue to resist the switch, especially those who have much more fertile land and a good water supply. Farmers who are struggling with water scarcity in arid areas are more open to switching. In the Katik Lantang, Singakerta area of Bali, farmers say they drove up rice production from 7.4 tonnes per hectare to 12.2 tonnes with SRI.

"SRI rice is much heavier than other rice because there are fewer empty grains," Widia says. "It's also much healthier because the roots are stronger and go much deeper compared to conventionally farmed rice."

But an even greater motivation for reluctant farmers to make the switch is that SRI-grown rice is much more profitable. A 2007 study showed that the final profit based on one hectare using SRI rose to Rp6.04 million compared to Rp3.7 million profit from conventional farming methods.

That isn't to say Sri doesn't have its skeptics. One of them is Thomas Sinclair, a plant physiologist at the Agriculture Research Service in the US Department of Agriculture, who writes that SRI "runs directly counter to well-established principles for high crop growth. These principles were developed over many years of careful testing and scrutiny by scientists worldwide, and they have stood the test of time."

SRI's low plant densities, Sinclair wrote, are a problem because energy for crop growth results from intercepted sunlight, and the amount of light intercepted translates directly into plant growth. High plant density enhances light interception, growth and yield. SRI suffers from poor light interception because of low plant densities. Ample water, he writes, maximizes rice yields, and flooded paddy fields assure that no water limitations develop. Third, he says, SRI faces a serious challenge in obtaining sufficient mineral nutrients from organic sources to achieve high yields and without sufficient nitrogen, those yields are not possible.

Other studies, including one by professors at Cornell, found that "there is still no evidence that SRI out-yields best management practices beyond Madagascar." Achim Dobermann, head of research at the highly respected International Rice Research Institute, has also been quoted as saying the claims for SRI are exaggerated.

Nonetheless, the Indonesian Agency of Agricultural Research and Development (AARD) and its Rice Research Center in Sukamandi, West Java in 2008 reported that dry-season SRI paddy yields were 6.2 tonnes per hectare compared to the control yield of 4.1 tonnes, and that in the subsequent wet season, the SRI plot yielded 8.2 tonnes/ha.

There are some acknowledged pitfalls. Since rice is the same family as grass, SRI crops can be riddled with weeds and difficult to manage. Some farmers complain that it's much harder for them to harvest SRI, because the roots are a great deal more resilient than traditionally farmed rice crops.

"The main pitfall we have positively identified is damage from root-feeding nematodes when farmers switch to aerobic soil conditions. But that depends on the existence of such populations in the soil already. Most nematodes are not root-feeding but rather are beneficial or neutral. SRI also requires more labor during the learning phase, but becomes labor saving over time," Uphoff said.

In practice, SRI involves some combination of the following changes in rice cultivation practices. These practices are as follows:

• Transplant seedlings at a very young age – 8 to 12 days old, at most 15 days old, instead of the usual age for seedlings of 3-4 weeks or more.
• Raise seedlings in unflooded nurseries, not planted densely and well-supplied with organic matter. There is an option of direct-seeding, but transplanting is most common.
• Transplant seedlings quickly, carefully and shallow – taking care to have minimum trauma to roots, not inverting plant root tips upward which delays resumption of growth.
• Transplant seedlings at wider distance and singly -- rather than in clumps of 3-4 plants -- and in a square pattern, usually 25x25 cm, giving roots and leaves more space to grow.
• Do not continuously flood the soil – soil saturation causes plant roots to regenerate and suppresses soil organisms that require oxygen; either apply small amounts of water daily, to keep soil moist but not saturated, or alternately flood and dry the soil.
• Weed control is preferably done with a simple mechanical hand weeder. This aerates the soil as it eliminates weeds, giving better results than either hand weeding or herbicides.
• Provide as much organic matter as possible to the soil – while chemical fertilizer gives positive results with SRI practices, the best yields will come with organic fertilization. This does more than feed the plant: it feeds the soil, so that the soil can feed the plant.

From Norman Uphoff's responses to 'Frequently asked questions about SRI. For more information about SRI, please visit: http://ciifad.cornell.edu/SRI/

Michelle Cempaka is a Bali-based journalist.

Saudi reaps benefits of first offshore rice production

Cheaper Basmatice rice

First cargo of rice arrives in oil-rich kingdom amid mixed feelings over business ethics.

2009-02-03
By Habib Trabelsi - PARIS
Middle East Online

Having scarce water resources but possessing the world’s largest oil wealth, the semi-desert Saudi Arabia has just began to reap the dividends of offshore agricultural production, with the arrival in the kingdom of the first cargo of rice.

The arrival of this cargo, whose country of origin and quantity were not disclosed, was the opportunity for King Abdullah to encourage the Minister of Trade and Industry, who chairs a Ministerial Committee for overseas agricultural investment, to move forward.

Black gold for a green revolution … offshore

According to official media, King Abdullah "welcomed the positive results of this initiative and urged the Ministerial Committee to redouble their efforts to achieve the set objectives" when he received on January 26 the Minister of Trade and the Industry, Abdullah Zinelli.

The minister was accompanied by two Saudi businessmen, Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi and Hassan Abdallah al-Masri who are engaged in "King Abdullah’s initiative” to ensure the kingdom’s food self-sufficiency.

Like the other states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Saudi Arabia has seen in recent months the bill of its food imports skyrocket under the impact of the global food crisis and the decline of US dollar.

With more than 24 million inhabitants, Saudi Arabia has always been and remains the largest importer in the GCC, which also groups Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

The poles of attraction for Saudi investors

According to official media, the Committee has already visited several countries as part of this "initiative", especially Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, Sudan, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Vietnam and Ethiopia.

Other targeted countries include Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine, Georgia, Brazil ... and the list is not closed.

Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland have been offered to Saudi investors.

The target country must have fertile and promising lands. It must provide encouraging administrative facilities. More importantly, investors need to recover some of the crops according to "reasonable quotas", which will be exported to the Saudi market, according to the investment criteria set by the Ministerial Committee.

Goal: food self-sufficiency

This "initiative" has, since its launch last summer, been the subject of much controversy, reported by the local press.

Many economists argue "objective reasons" which justify the use of offshore food production, including the rise of food prices in the world market and the dwindling US dollar which resulted in a heavy inflation and severe shortage of basic foodstuffs such as rice, especially after the interruption of supplies of Asian rice, including from India and Pakistan.

Rice prices have almost doubled in recent months in the kingdom, because of the growing demand and insufficient supply. According to press reports, the price of a 5 kg bag of ''basmati rice'' rose from 35 to 75 Saudi riyals.

Moreover, the kingdom had tried in the 1980s to achieve food self-sufficiency. It had even won the expensive bet to become in less than a decade the sixth largest producer of wheat and had ceased to import dairy and poultry products.

A new food imperialism!

However, other experts cited by websites, denounced "the grip" of Saudi billionaires on other countries’ fertile lands which are the only means of subsistence of their populations.

"Now the petrodollars of Gulf monarchies have become a means of pressure to snatch the agricultural land from poor countries. Who said that colonialism was over?” Asked one of the experts.

"And even if they are public officials who negotiate and conclude the transactions, it is the private investors who speculate, do business and reap the benefits of these transactions," said another.

"Details please! and cheap rice!"

"More details please!" Wrote Saturday (February 1) without complacency Hmoud Abu Taleb, a well-known journalist of the daily Al-Madina, urging more information on the first cargo of rice.

"While these are private investors, but the money belongs to the motherland," said Abu Taleb, raising several questions about “the management of these investments" and" long-term strategies” that are to be adopted in case of major political developments in the target countries.

"The ordinary citizen does without details in which only speculators are interested," said Osama.

"All we want is rice at an affordable price," added Osama whom for that rice, especially Basmati and other varieties of quality, has become a luxury product.

Translated by Dr. Saad Guerraoui, Senior Editor at Middle East Online

Rice farming season in Cambodia

A farmer pumps excess water out of his rice field after heavy rain last night in Kampong Speu province, 50 km (31 miles) west of Phnom Penh May 17, 2008. The Cambodian government needs to further support farmers to grow more rice, as its price has doubled recently and the country may find it another pivotal revenue generator, national media said on May 9, 2008. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
A farmer plows in his rice field after heavy rain last night in Kampong Speu province, 50 km (31 miles) west of Phnom Penh May 17, 2008. The Cambodian government needs to further support farmers to grow more rice, as its price has doubled recently and the country may find it another pivotal revenue generator, national media said on May 9, 2008. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

As world grasps for rice, Cambodia's success story

The rice-exporting country has seen a dramatic rebound thanks to years of agricultural research.

May 1, 2008
By David Montero
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - For 30 years the rice fields at a commune on the outskirts of Phnom Penh lay mostly barren and unused, a legacy of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist regime that led almost 2 million Cambodians to their death, many from starvation.

But today Cambodia has a rice surplus. And these fields are incubating some of the most advanced rice technology in Cambodia, under the tutelage of the Cambodian Agricultural Research Institute (CARDI), which is at the center of Cambodia's largely unheralded "green" revolution.

As the global food crisis continues to spark riots and rationing, Cambodia's turnaround showcases the power – and the limits – of rice research, experts say. Few countries in modern history have engineered as dramatic an agricultural rebound as Cambodia.

In 10 years, beginning in 1987, by applying the tool suite of the Green Revolution – new rice varieties, improved irrigation, and better fertilizer – the country has risen to a peak of rice output, producing enough rice to be self-sufficient for the first time in 25 years.

"It has been a big achievement for [Cambodia]," says Men Sarom, CARDI's director. "And I think research contributed a lot to that."

The kernel of that research was first planted in the 1960s, when scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a pioneering agricultural institute based in the Philippines, developed higher-yield varieties of grain and introduced new systems of irrigation and fertilizer. Thus was born the Rice Revolution.

Of particular importance was IR8, a rice variety that had a yield double that of normal rice, was less susceptible to disease and more responsive to fertilizer. Dubbed the "miracle rice," it has been credited with averting massive famine in India, Africa, and throughout the developing world in the 1970s.

Cambodia is home to one of the Green Revolution's greatest successes. In 1969, Cambodia's annual rice production was 4 million tons a year, a healthy output. But by 1980, the 6 million people who had survived the Communist Khmer Rouge era, from 1975 to 1978, were on the brink of starvation. By 1997, however, Cambodia had been virtually reborn: its rice fields were producing nearly as much rice as they had in 1969, but on half the land, making the country rice self-sufficient once again.

The rebound was the result of a collaboration between the Cambodian government, the IRRI, and the Australia government, which together invested millions of dollars in irrigation, infrastructure, and fertilizer beginning in 1987. They also trained 1,300 scientists and support staff to revitalize the country's agricultural system. And the new high-yielding rice varieties allowed farmers to produce more on less land.

Today, experts say, Cambodia's yields have risen from 1.35 tons per hectare to 2.5 tons per hectare. It produces enough to export – more than a million tons this year – but recently imposed export controls to ensure it has enough for its own people.

Still, as Cambodia also illustrates, scientific advances will only take rice production so far. Although Cambodia's yields have doubled in the last 30 years, they are only almost half that of Thailand and Laos (where better soil conditions, seed varieties, climate and management make for higher outputs). Meanwhile, weeds here still cause rice yield losses of up to 30 percent, and poor seed quality in some areas means that 160,000 tons of rice rot every year, according to a report by the IRRI.

"There are still many problems that need to be addressed – problems from climate change and market changes," say Mr. Sarom.

Scientists also warn that the amount of land being farmed – especially in the developing world – has not increased substantially in the last two decades. Urban sprawl and industrial development continue to compete for farmland.

"Even here in Thailand [the world's largest exporter of rice], even if they wanted to, they can't produce more rice. There isn't much more farmland, and the production level is also already pretty high," says Paul Risley, a spokesman for the World Food Program in Thailand.

The recent global food crisis has sharply underlined that, despite the Green Revolution's benefits, many countries are simply not able to produce enough food for their exploding populations.

But even if the biggest production advances have already been achieved, that doesn't mean scientists are giving up.

CARDI, continues to develop new varieties that can produce better quality rice and withstand inclement weather. Sarom says research is already pointing the way to higher rice yields. "In America and Australia, you have yields of six to eight tons of rice per hectare. Why not here? We still have the potential to increase productivity," he says.

That enthusiasm was echoed by the country's agriculture minister, Chan Sarun, Tuesday when he said he expects Cambodia to produce enough rice to export some 8 million tons a year by 2015. That would make it one of the world's top rice exporters.

And around the world, research still offers the promise of better yields. For example, hybrid rice, a blend of three kinds of rice, grows faster, is more disease resistant, and produces 20 percent higher yields. Hybrids are only just starting to catch on: 800,000 hectares were planted in Asia outside of China between 2001-02, but only 1,000 in Indonesia, for example, and only 20,000 in Bangladesh, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The expanded use of hybrids has particular promise for food security, the FAO adds.

The current food crisis may be creating an investment environment for a second Green Revolution, some analysts say. By averting massive famine, the first Green Revolution helped create an impression among world leaders that investments in agriculture were no longer as vital. Many countries stopped spending on agricultural development. That may be starting to change as Malaysia, the Philippines, and China have in recent weeks announced plans to boost investment in agriculture.

Rural life in Kandal province

A Cambodian farmer plows his plantation field near the Mekong river bank in Kandal province, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, April 8 ,2008. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Between the lack of water and lands, rice farming is losing its steam (Part 1 of the series on rice)

Cambodia is divided into a populated central zone, and a less populated peripheral zone. The central zone is occupied by 12 million inhabitants, has a population density of 250 people/sq. km., and farming occupies 55% of the entire area. The "empty" peripheral zone contains less than 2 million people, has a population density of less than 15 people/sq. km., and less than 5% of this zone is used for farming. (Map by Cambodge Soir)

Friday, March 23, 2007

By Lorraine de Foucher
Cambodge Soir
Unofficial Translation from French by Tola Ek

Click here to read the original Cambodge Soir's article in French

"One tenth of the population owns almost half of the lands in Cambodia. This unequal distribution of lands constitutes the second slowdown to all development for long term stability in the farming sector in the kingdom. "

Hun Sen asserted recently that before the end of his career, he wants to oversee rice production reaching 4 to 5 tons per hectare. The objective is still farfetched, as explained in this first part of our story dedicated to rice.

At the beginning of January, Hun Sen declared that he wanted to present his candidacy to the position of prime minister up until he reaches the age of 90-year-old. “I am not able to fulfill my objective yet. Cambodia currently obtains a rice yield of 2.4 tons per hectare, but I want this yield to reach 4 to 5 tons per hectare. Right now, the annual income of one person [in Cambodia] is $300, and I will end my candidacy when the annual income increases to $500,” Hun Sen explained during an inauguration of a branch office of the Cambodia Agricultural Development and Research Institute (CADRI). In fact, at an average rice production yield increase of 2% during the last decade, it would take 30 years to reach a crop yield of 4 tons per hectare.

In a country where 80% of the population depends on the agriculture and where rice farming is considered the less productive in Asia, a major agricultural challenge is waiting around the corner.

In this first part of the series, we are presenting herein a Cambodian rice farming which lacks water and lands, the land issue is currently subjected to a difficult institutional context. Economically, the rice farming sector is losing steam, even though too many people still depend on it for their daily survival. With this week presentation of the diagnostic on the difficulties encountered by rice farming, next week, we will tour the existing initiatives to try to pull the farming sector out of this crisis. We will look at the various improvements to the irrigation system, as well as the rice farming intensification system (RFIS), we will look at what is being proposed by the different players involved, to improve the performance of rice farming.

Cambodian farmers are first and foremost a “Neak Srè,” a man of the rice field. To eat in Cambodian is “pissa bay” or “nham bay” which literally mean eating rice. The planting of the rice crop is thus of utmost importance in this country of land and water.

First paradox: lack of water in a country submerged by water during half of the year

The different type of lands found in Cambodia shows that water is in fact the first problem of the country. Stéphane Boulakia, a researcher at the center for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for the Development (ICARD), proposed a classification of the type of lands in Cambodia. The cultivated areas in the kingdom can be divided into three major types.

The first type, “the highest step of the central plain,” corresponds to the sandy plains located in the provinces of Siem Reap, Kompong Tham, Kompong Chhnang, Kompong Speu and in the western part of the province of Takeo. This are is limiting in its nature because the soils are not fertile and the presence of water is directly linked to rainfall. In these areas, the production depends in major part to the capriciousness of the skies. An early end to the rainy season, say before 15 October for example – as it happened in 2004, when the rice plants have not yet bloomed, would take a major toll on rice farming. This type of fragile rice farming occupies more than half of the cultivable rice fields in Cambodia.

The second type of lands extend over the hydromorphic (soils characterized with the excess of water) plains located in the lower part of the sandy plains. However, unlike the sandy plains, the rise of water level in the rivers reaches this land area which is watered by both the rainfall and the rise of the Tonle Sap water level. Furthermore, in addition to the fact that the presence of water is less random, better soils – such as those encountered in Prey Veng and the great agricultural plains of Battambang and Banteay Meanchey – can be found there as well.

The important difference in the crop yield between two contrasting provinces such as Kompong Speu (sandy plains) and Battambang (hydromorphic plains) clearly shows the extreme variability of these types of rice farming from one year to the next, locally it also generates severe food crisis among the poorest farmers. One can then understand better the difficulties faced by the agro-industry down the chain that must depend on a very fluctuating production at the source. It is also difficult to turn the farmers’ attention towards other crop varieties for export when they are having difficulties understanding their crop production, and the potential that crop left over from their consumption could be sold.

The third type of lands corresponds to the “lowest step” of the Cambodian plain, the shores of the Mekong river and the Tonle Sap lake. The height of the water rise is a crucial factor here since these alluvial areas cannot be traditionally planted [with rice] during rainy seasons, except for the variety of rice crop called “floating kinds” – a crop which is now disappearing. Henceforth, in these areas, more modern cultivation techniques are put to use to develop the lands. The basic principle of rice farming in these areas consists of delaying the planting season to the out-of-season period, when the lands are again freed once the water level drops. The type of rice farming put into practice in these areas, depends on channel systems (prek) to store water during the water level rise period, or to irrigate the rice fields. In these high crop yield areas (4 to 5 tons per hectare), the techniques of the green revolution could be partially adopted thanks to the control of water. Unfortunately, these areas are very limited in size and they are subjected to strong pressures from land issues. The production gains obtained on these lands where water is controlled, logically lead the Cambodian government to focus its attention to the development of the irrigation system. However, putting in practice the irrigation policy cannot hide another essential problem faced by the rice farming sector: the distribution of lands.

Second paradox: “lack of lands” in a country with low population density

If water can be considered as the source of the rice farming crisis in Cambodia, land disputes can also be considered as another catalyst. The “lack of lands” can be better understood by looking into the history of the populating of Cambodia. In 1870, during the colonization era, the kingdom had only 1 million inhabitants, and they are not packed together [as they are now]. The populating [of the lands] was conducted in place, with little development of empty lands. Framing implies that large amount of land is available nearby: the extent of land cultivated is determined by the capacity each family can work on, i.e. 2 to 3 hectares per family. Nearby important resources are also needed for rice farming. 137 years and 13 million inhabitants later, the situation is far from being as easy as it was. The agricultural space in the central plain is now saturated. The access to land is reduced – to an average of less than 1 hectare per family currently. There are no longer other resources to complement rice farming, lower income caused by inclement weather force the farmers to supplement their earnings through non farming labor. Thus, two distinct images of Cambodia can be discerned.

On one hand, there is the “rice farming” and populated Cambodia, which counts 11 million inhabitants, living in areas where the population density is about 250 inhabitants per square kilometer. In these areas, cultivated lands occupy 55% of the total area. In this zone, the farmers live on subsistence farming. One the other hand, the “forest area” of Cambodia, located along the periphery, is empty. These areas are populated by only 2 million inhabitants, thus the population density there amounts to 15 inhabitants per square kilometer. 5% of the entire area in this zone is dedicated to farming – mostly cash crop farming and exploitation of natural resources. When these two zones of Cambodia are combined together, only 20% of the country’s area is cultivated, a very low percentage compared to the areas that are potentially cultivable. We can see here 2 conjoined movements of the land capital. The land size are getting smaller and smaller, three fourth of farms sit on less than 1 hectare of land.

At the same time, the concentration of the population keeps on increasing, the situation can be qualified as explosive when the percentage of farmers without lands is accounted for. One tenth of the population owns almost half of the lands in Cambodia. This unequal distribution of lands constitutes the second slowdown to all development for long term stability in the farming sector in the kingdom. What farmers would be interested in investing to increase the crop yield on a field size that is less than one hectare? Even if farmers use all their savings, and all the technology available, they would never surpass a crop yield of 5 tons per hectare – a rice production which is not sufficient for an acceptable return on investment (ROI). The problems of lack of lands will become more acute, especially in view of the demographic explosion that the country is undergoing. A family of 5 that barely survives on 1 hectare of land, will only be able to pass on 2,000-square-meter to each one of the children as inheritance. This lack of lands implies that the land crisis could put on the roads million of farmers who do not have the minimum amount of lands for them to work on.

Rice and the Cambodian economy

Talking about farming in Cambodia is tantamount to talking almost exclusively about rice farming because of the lack of diversification of this sector. In fact, 2.5 million hectares of land is exclusively dedicated to rice farming. In second rank, comes the soybean production which occupies an area of only 118,000-hectare. The dominance of rice farming is dwarfing all other types of farming. Almost 2 million households (each family consisting of 2 parents and 3 children in the average, based on national statistics) are planting rice, and 80% of the country’s poor are depending on it. The number of people who depend on rice farming remains important whereas the economic dependency of the country on rice farming is steadily decreasing in the last few years. In 1998, the 3 million tons of rice produced represent 45% of the gross domestic product (GDP), whereas in 2006, the 6 million tons of rice produced account for lass than 30% of the GDP. National self-sufficiency is reached but during bad years, several regions must confront food crisis. In short, Cambodia’s rice farming is still too unstable: irregular surplus, weak diversification, and the limitation of the internal market prevent this sector from becoming a major economic sector.

As a result, the agro-industrial sector which could be developed, is so far nonexistent, even though this sector could bring in a strong value-added sector to complement rice production.

Improving the productivity of rice farming is becoming a priority in the government rectangular strategy for 2006-2010. This strategy recognizes the “vulnerability of the Cambodian economy caused by external impacts, in spite of the development of the garment and the tourism industries … Thus, the necessity to use the country high farming potential in the agro-industrial sectors.” The agricultural intensification is one of the sides of the rectangle which would bring growth, jobs, equity and efficiency to Cambodia. But the government’s willingness could be impeded by the multiplicity of the characters involved in the rice sector. Several ministries are working on this topic: the Ministry of Agriculture, of course, but also the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Rural Development, of Land Management, of Environment, etc… To that one must also add the foreign fund lenders, who make their presence felt in this domain, as well as the numerous NGOs. Coordination thus becomes very difficult, and the setup of a common strategy is still in its infancy. Finally, the funds dedicated to this endeavor still remain weak in comparison to the task in hand.