Agriculture
and Rural Development
(i)
Introduction
Family
agriculture plays an important role in Cambodia providing employment
opportunities for around two thirds of the population and contributing to
national food security and the economy. In addition, it has important cultural
and environmental values and functions for Cambodian Society. Under the fast
changing political, economic and technological context, there is an increasing
threat to the sustainability and productivity of family agriculture.
(ii)
Key issues
The
main issues of concern in relation to agriculture and rural development are:
Increasing pressure on land resources, because of increasing agricultural land and forest concessions, land speculation and a growing population. This situation limits the access of a growing farming population to land and forest resources.
There is an increasing inflow of products from other countries. Generally, imported commodities are more competitive than local ones, which discourage small farmers, mainly subsistence farmers, to invest in agriculture. Cambodian farmers are not competitive because they have very limited access to technology, seeds, irrigation and other facilities. In addition, they are not organized. The entry of Cambodia into the WTO will worsen this situation if no appropriate mechanisms are put in place to improve the capacity of local agriculture to cope with free trade.
There is a very high dependency on imported inputs implying high expenditures, especially with fertilizers and pesticides, which drain small farmers’ incomes. At least 50 million US$ per year is spent on purchasing these inputs.
The number of rural youth is increasing, but they generally do not have the opportunity to gain professional skills in agriculture, rural enterprise and local development. This affects the long-term development of rural communities.
Increasing numbers of small farmers are finding themselves in debt, especially due to expenditures on health care and purchasing agricultural inputs. As they are generally subsistence farmers, and they do not have access to non-agricultural income activities, they have to borrow money from private moneylenders and micro-finance institutions. The services of micro-finance institutes and NGOs are increasingly available; however, the interest rates are still very high for farmers. In addition, they do not invest money in agricultural production due to a lack of access to technical information.
In
spite of the importance and the threat to family agriculture, there is no clear
priority and program relating to pro-small farmer agricultural development as
the government has instead focused on agribusiness and large-scale agriculture
in the poverty reduction strategy.
(iii) Recommendations
We
would recommend that the government and donor community work with the private
sector, NGOs and rural farmers to develop policies and programs for the
promotion of small farmers and ecologically friendly agriculture development. We
strongly believe that the economic and socio-political stability of Cambodia
depends mainly on the improvement of the livelihood of around 2.5 million small
farmers’ families. In this regard, we would propose the following specific
recommendations:
We strongly recommend that agricultural land
concessions should be limited. If such concessions are granted, they should
be done in consultation with the affected community. Cost benefit analysis
should be undertaken, including economic, social and environmental aspects.
The access of small farmers to land and forest should be a priority.
Agricultural extension should be strengthened through
the establishment of an effective, decentralized agricultural extension
system at the district level. The office should have a pluralistic service
provider system undertaking various tasks such as: disseminating
information; facilitating support to farmer organizations and networks; and
ensuring a supportive environment for a pluralistic service provider system.
Agricultural extension should be done in sustainable
ways ensuring that organized groups of farmers will be able to facilitate
the sharing of lessons and experiences between them and to define their
training needs based on their livelihood-related needs and issues. In this
perspective, the approaches and practices of Farmers' Field Schools has to
be promoted, based on lessons learned from countries that have developed
these practices for many recent years.
In addition, to improve agricultural extension, there
is also a need to support small farmers to cope with the fast changing
socio-economic, political, technological and environmental context. Support
should be given to farmers to organize themselves in associations and/or
cooperatives. There should be organizations that genuinely represent the
interests of farmers, allowing farmers to take collective action for their
mutual and community benefit. The representatives of farmers’
organizations should be invited to participate in any consultation process
related to agricultural development policies and strategies. Technical,
management, credit and marketing support should be provided to these farmer
organizations.
There should be investment in pilot projects pertaining
to professional training for rural youth or young farmers, rural enterprise
development, local development, leadership and management. The success of
the project would provide long-term benefits to the rural communities
through the availability of competent human resources at the local level.
Law enforcement should be strengthened on
agrochemicals, especially pesticides by controlling the import, production,
distribution, marketing and use of class I[1]
pesticides and other pesticides especially, DDT and Endosulfan[2].
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Ministry of
Health and Environment should be more proactive in informing the public by
using mass media, radio and TV about the problems caused by pesticides.
Training on pesticides and health should be organized for health officials
to inform them of diseases or health problem connected with pesticide use[3].
We encourage government, donors, research institutions
and NGOs to focus resources and expertise on research and dissemination of
innovation relating to low-external inputs, human health and environment
friendly agriculture as all this is proving to be a very promising approach
aimed at poverty reduction. For example, the ecological system of rice
intensification or SRI is one of the most successful methods of achieving a
significant increase of rice yield without depending on external inputs,
such as fertilizer and pesticides[4].
At present, around 10,000 farmers in Cambodia have adopted the system, and
it has potential to spread fast. Many NGOs, government departments, donors
and international organization (such as GTZ, Oxfam, JICA and the ADB) have
already provided resources to support SRI. With stronger support from
donors, government and NGOs this system can be adopted by farmers in
Cambodia within the next five to ten years, helping to alleviate current
problems related to household and food security.
With the poorest households, frequent food shortages
can be alleviated with promotion of crop diversification (with Integrated
Farming Management) aimed at reducing the risks of rice monoculture.
Food security should include consideration for
nutrition-related extension or training aimed at promoting a more healthy
and more balanced diet.
With regard to irrigation, we recommend donors and
government support small-scale irrigation facilities by supporting
communities to organize themselves in water users' communities, rather than
focusing on large-scale irrigation systems.
The government should adopt a policy and program to
support a community-based seed production and exchange initiative, which can
ensure the right of small farmer communities to seeds. In this respect,
development efforts should not focus on creating dependency by small farmers
to seed companies, but on strengthening the community in breeding and
exchanging seeds. Quality regulations for seeds sold need to be applied
however.
With growing uncertainty and concerns about the possible negative impact of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) on the health, ecology and livelihoods of small farmers, we strongly support the initiative of Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in placing a moratorium on GMOs in Cambodia. All food aid should be screed to ensure it is not GMO.
For more information on the issues raised in this paper, please contact:
Centre
d’Etude et de Developpement Agricole Cambodgien (CEDAC),
Tel:
023 880-916, Email: cedac@camnet.com.kh
Lutheran
World Federation Cambodia Program, E-mail: prog@lwfcam.org.kh