Cambodia floods set to worsen

Christian Aid (UK)

October 20 2011 - The worst floods in Cambodia for more than a decade, that have killed 247 people, mainly from drowning, and displaced more than 100,000 families, could worsen, Christian Aid warned this week.

‘With heavy rains set to continue it is feared the people of Cambodia will suffer even more,’ said Katja Leven, Christian Aid’s country manager for Cambodia

‘The situation will worsen further when neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam open their dams to ease their own floods.’

‘A major concern is food security. Now and in the longer-term there’s the risk of severe food shortages due to rice fields being submerged, grain stores swept away and the December harvest being lost,’ said Katja.

Cambodia's Food Security

A Cambodian man carries rice at a paddy rice farm in Bekpeang village in Cambodia. (Photo: AP)

USAID has awarded a five-year, multi-million dollar contract, designed to improve Cambodia's food security.

01-20-2011

VOA News

Improved land and other resources management will conserve and maintain the economic value of Cambodia's sensitive ecosystems.

The United States Government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, has awarded a five-year, multi-million dollar contract, designed to improve Cambodia's food security through enhanced agricultural development and better management of natural resources. The five-year contract was awarded to Fintrac, Incorporated, a highly-respected U.S.-based agribusiness consulting firm that develops agricultural solutions to end hunger and poverty.

This award will serve as U.S. Government's flagship food security activity in Cambodia. "Helping Address Rural Vulnerabilities and Ecosystems Stability", or "HARVEST", the Project, will work with public, private and civil society to strengthen food security by increasing agricultural productivity; raising the incomes of the rural poor; preparing the country to adapt to climate change; and reducing the number of Cambodians, especially women and children, suffering from malnutrition.

HARVEST is supported by several U.S. Presidential Initiatives, including Feed the Future; the U.S. Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative; the Global Health Initiative; and the Global Climate Change Initiative. These are all key components of the U.S. Global Development Policy announced by President Barack Obama. Cambodia is one of 20 priority countries receiving Feed the Future support.

U.N. injects 5 mln USD for Cambodian children, food security

June 08, 2010
Xinhua

The United Nations announced on Tuesday to launch a three-year joint program of 5 million U.S. dollars to improve food security and reduce under-nutrition among children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.

The program will be piloted in Cambodia's two provinces of Svay Rieng and Kampong Speu, considered by the World Food Program to be "chronically food-insecure," said the UNDP press release.

The joint program, to be implemented between 2010 and 2012, was developed in close consultation between government ministries, U.N. agencies and other relevant stakeholders.

U.N. Resident Coordinator Douglas Broderick said in the release, "The joint program provides a unique opportunity to strengthen the government's response to food insecurity and malnutrition in Cambodia. It is also a significant step forward for the U.N. in Cambodia to deliver as one."

Levels of maternal and child under-nutrition are considerably high in Cambodia, said the release.

Poverty, food insecurity, inadequate knowledge and poor nutrition and feeding practices are the main causes of malnutrition among women and children in the country, it said.

The Cambodia anthropometrics survey in 2008 showed that 39.5 percent of children below the age of five were chronically malnourished, 28.8 percent underweight and 8.9 percent acutely malnourished, said the release.

EU To Help ‘Bridge Gap’ in Food Security

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
25 February 2010

The European Union announced Thursday it will provide $25 million for five projects to help Cambodia deal with climate change and rising food prices.

“The EU has decided to implement a very big program of food security that will help the poor people in rural areas of Cambodia to go to overcome this food price,” Ajay Markanday, Cambodia’s Food and Agricultural Organization representative, told reporters Thursday.

The projects are designed to “bridge the gap” between emergency food aid and longer-term development, by improving agricultural production, the EU said in a statement.

“This aid project is very important for Cambodia,” Srun Sakhum, deputy secretary-general of the Ministry of Agriculture, told reporters. “The project will provide rice seedlings and fertilizer and training to the poor farmers to promote agriculture products to avoid food insecurity as Cambodia faces high prices and climate change.”

He also said the projects will promote the growing of produce, the development of fish farms and irrigation improvement. This will improve overall nutrition, he said, and help the country prepare against possible adverse affects of climate change.

Separately on Thursday, the Ministry of Environment joined the EU, UNDP and the Swedish and Dutch development agencies in launching the Cambodian Climate Change Alliance, an effort to join developing countries together in mitigating the effects of climate change.

Cambodia hopes to bolster food security by boosting crop yields

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia will spend 21 million U.S. dollars this year to boost rice crop yields in a move aimed at bolstering food security in the Kingdom, local media reported on Wednesday.

The funds from the Ministry of Agriculture will go towards irrigation systems and developing drought- and flood-resistant hybrid rice seeds in an effort to boost production, the Phnom PenhPost quoted Chan Sarun, agricultural minister, as saying.

"We have prepared more than 21 million U.S. dollars for new hybrid rice seeds that can endure drought and flood," Chan Sarun said.

Officials are also aiming to expand cultivated land by five percent.

Cambodia's rice production suffers from one of the lowest yields in the region, according to statistics compiled by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

Ouk Saren, director of the Khmer Community for Agriculture Development, said farmers in lowland and coastal areas worry about unpredictable floods, while farmers in highland areas are more concerned with droughts.

"We need more modern techniques to help us resolve this problem," he said.

Cambodia expected to produce an estimated 7.286 million tonnes of rice for 2009/2010 of which the country expects to have about 3.3 million tonnes surplus for export, according to the agricultural report on Tuesday.

After allowing rice export to neighboring countries, Hun Sen's gov't begs $38 mln from the ADB to ensure food security

ADB to submit plan for $38 mln project in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will submit next month to its board of directors a proposal for an emergency food aid project following the Cambodian government's request for 38 million U.S. dollars to ensure food security between 2008 and 2011, local newspaper reported Monday.

The project would benefit more than 500,000 people in five provinces and the Tonle Sap river and some poor areas in Phnom Penh, Arjun Goswami, the bank's country representative, was quoted as saying by the Phnom Penh Post.

He said worldwide price hikes for food and fuel have pushed traders to sell their rice to neighboring countries, thus driving down domestic supply.

"Our highest concern, as well as that of the government's, therefore, is to do whatever we can to ensure that the vulnerable segment of the population continues to have affordable access to basic food commodities," Goswami said.

He said that in response to rising food costs the government has established an interministerial National Food Security Taskforce, headed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which would provide overall policy guidance and coordination of the project.