And so we come to the end of a year, a year in which there's been precious little to report on topic-wise, certainly of any substance.
How come?
If anything, companies have been gaining ever more influence over governments worldwide, so much so that it's becoming increasingly hard to distinguish between the two.
Possibly pushing hybrid rice as such has so little positives to mention (other than profits) that we aren't hearing anything about it.
I suspect the leading companies involved, are just at the moment in a lull and certainly looking into what f.i. Europe has been trying to regulate in say the glyphosate case.
Producing fake news also doesn't seem to work long term wise, so probably the main companies involved are doing a rethink.
We'll soon learn what's in stall for us in the coming year ...
With the deteriorating (and need I suggest farcical?) political situation in Cambodia, the news (Phnom Penh Post, Dec. 8) that Italy wishes to arrest further EU imports from Cambodia might be viewed as being linked. The article suggests otherwise:
'Italy, along with six other European Union countries, has filed a fresh request to European Commission to limit the volume of rice imported from the Kingdom by activating a “safeguard clause” that allows EU member states to impose barriers to protect against trade imbalances.
The Italian government submitted an official request to the European Commission on November 20 calling for restrictions on the amount of imported rice entering the European market from Cambodia, according to a report yesterday by Euractiv news.
While the report called the request “trailblazing” and a more concerted effort compared to a similar submission to the commission in 2016, local industry insiders said that Italy’s statements usually fall on deaf ears and are an annual protectionist complaint.
...
Long Kemvichet, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said he was not worried about Italy’s recent request to limit rice exports, because the commission had never responded to such requests in the past'.
Though it's not linked, one can imagine that with the election run-in, the EU might want to give off a clearer sign that the road taken might not be exactly what they had in mind. And here's a stick ...
And concerning exports, state run Agence Kampuchea Press (Dec. 22) reports on the newest (upbeat) figures:
'For the first 11 months of 2017, Cambodia exported a total of 562,237 tons of milled rice, up 17.20 percent compared to the same period in 2016.
According to statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, during the period, Cambodian milled rice was exported to 63 countries around the world, mainly to China (164,979 tons), France (70,741 tons), Poland (41,469 tons), Malaysia (35,209 tons), Bangladesh (26,970 tons), England (25,889 tons).
By the end of November this year, rainy paddy rice cultivation ended successfully with 106.45 percent of the yearly plan, said the source'.
Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 11) adds:
'Approximately 45 percent of Cambodia’s total rice exports have gone to the European market, while 29 percent have gone to China alone.So entry to Europe is quite essential for the Cambodian rice market.
According to Hean Vanhan, director general at the General Directorate of Agriculture, “based on the trend, rice exports should reach over 600,000 tonnes by the end of the year”.
From the Khmer Times (Dec. 13) this snippet of rice news:
'Next month the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) will hold the sixth edition of the Cambodia Rice Forum, bringing major stakeholders in the sector together to discuss the future of the local rice industry and create a joint effort to ramp up production and exports'.Giant
I like this article (Phnom Penh Post, Dec. 27), just hope it's not all a write up to make the initiative seem positive. Read with me:
'A conservation scheme begun eight years ago in Preah Vihear province, in which farmers are recruited to grow organic rice for the international market in exchange for protecting local ecology, has successfully signed up 43 new families in Stung Treng province over the last year, according to a press release today.More initiatives, this time from the private sector. Amru Rice (Dec. 8) announces:
An effort by Wildlife Conservation Society and BirdLife International, the Ibis Rice project guarantees incomes for participating farmers in selected conservation areas through the sale of organic rice above the market price. According to the statement yesterday, the 43 new families in Khek Svay village of Stung Treng’s Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary have committed to the project since last year. The project now has over 1,000 families participating, including in Preah Vihear’s Kulen Prom Tep and Chhaeb wildlife sanctuaries.
...
Siem Pang Wildlife Sanctuary covers 150,000 hectares and is home to about 20 percent of world population of the critically endangered giant ibis and half the world population of the critically endangered white-shouldered ibis'.
'The Cambodian Agriculture Cooperative Cooperation (CCAC) set to be completed in Kampong Thom province by the end of the year, is the first large-scale farm cooperative venture in Cambodia.More business on new ideas. The Khmer Times (Dec. 8):
Funded by the European Union and local parties, the $3 million investment project will be located over 10 hectares and will process and store, rice, pepper, cashews, vegetables, and fruits ready for export.
Founder of CCAC and CEO of Amru Rice Cambodia Song Saran said rice will share about 60 percent of total storage of agricultural products, while pepper, cashews, vegetables and fruits, will be stored in the CCAC’s processing buildings, which has a storage capacity of up to 5,000 tonnes'.
'Cambodia and China will sign an agreement in the near future to support research on growing a new variety of rice in the kingdom, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF).
The proposed MoU, which is being negotiated by MAFF and its Chinese counterpart, will lay down the rules for cooperation between both nations in conducting studies on the rice variety known as oryza sativa japonica.
The ultimate goal is to grow the crop in the kingdom and export it to China, where demand for the rice variety is huge'.
I doubt whether this could be a success. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
'Officials in the agriculture sector yesterday called on relevant stakeholders to scale up initiatives for crop insurance schemes to help Cambodian farmers mitigate the risks of having their fields destroyed by flooding and drought.Poetic
Speaking at a workshop organised by German development agency GIZ, Mom Thany, undersecretary of state of Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said enlarging the availability of crop insurance would help secure the livelihoods of small-scale farmers.
“The agricultural sector is most vulnerable to climate change,” she said. “Crop insurance protects farmer’s investments and ensures that even when a harvest fails, farmers have sufficient financial resources to reinvest and cover basic household needs like food and health care.”
Typical crop insurance initiatives that have been piloted in the Kingdom involve rice farmers paying into a scheme at the beginning of the growing season, with payments based on the size of the farm, type of paddy grown and technical tools used. In return, farmers get an insurance payout if their crop is assessed to be damaged by flood or drought'.
Bangkok Post (Dec. 23) has an interesting article on the on-goings of rural Thailand:
'In July of this year, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha released his "Farmers' Soul-Soothing" poem to the press and the Thai public. He urged farmers: "Don't leave your home and farmland, leaving family behind, struggling to make a living locally."
His poem focuses on a number of prominent themes in rural development debates in Thailand: the migration of the young; the consequent ageing of those farmers left behind; the sustainability of agriculture; and the risks of leaving home.
...
This apparent ageing of farmers on the one hand, and farm size decline on the other, is also evident across the Southeast Asian region. The government and many agricultural economists see these trends as problematic.
...
The livelihoods that gradually came into view as our study progressed revealed not ageing farmers stubbornly holding onto their land, thus preventing the modernisation of the agriculture, but households struggling to build secure livelihoods against the inherited vulnerabilities of farming, a thinly woven social safety net, and the precariousness of much non-farm work'.
The riceland is held as a fall back option, should this modern life one day fall apart.
For the government's role, The Nation (Dec. 18) notes:
'The government has been trying to promote its large-plantation policy [for rice farmers] since last year with the ambitious goal of bringing farmers out of the “middle-income trap” by 2021. But farmer groups cannot help but wonder whether the policy has really increased their bargaining power.So poetry is the government's best shot?
“When I go to rice mills, I still feel powerless,” the manager of a large rice plantation in Khon Kaen province said on condition of anonymity recently.
Under the large-plantation policy, the government does not push farmers into working on the same plots of land. Rather, a shared management system is promoted that the government believes will help farmers lower their costs and boost their productivity'.
Scrap
There's been quite a few articles on rubber and cashew growing in the Khmer press lately.
Starting off with rubber.
Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 13) looks into the governments role:
'Despite a 31 percent increase in Cambodian rubber exports during the first 11 months of this year, the Ministry of Agriculture is failing to recoup on expenses it has spent sending expert technicians into the field in order to help boost production.
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, the government has spent $379,000 so far this year on technical support for rubber farmers and plantations, and has received only $299,000 back through revenue generated primarily through land rental fees.
...
Khoun Phalla, a director of the rubber department at the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the government has established five teams of rubber experts that have been deployed across the country.
“We have helped the price of rubber,” he said. “It is now better for small-scale farmers.” Phalla added that the ministry’s experts have shown farmers how to increase yields at lower costs.
“What we have spent so far will be returned through higher profits from rubber farmers and that will eventually promote government revenue,” he said.
However, Hang Sreng, director of rubber exporter Long Sreng International, said that despite the government’s expert teams, the rubber sector would remain largely unprofitable unless the government scraps taxes.
“We do not make profits from rubber because we have to pay a lot of taxes and fees to the government and that makes us unable to compete,” he said. “The specialists have helped with efficiency, but that is not enough.”
The Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 18) has an article on the foreign interests in the kingdom's plantations:
"Socfin Cambodia, the local branch of a Europe-based international rubber producing company that currently operates a 7,500-hectare rubber plantation in Mondulkiri, has announced plans to open the doors to its first rubber factory next April, with an initial investment of $5.7 million, a company executive said last week.
Jef Boedt, general manager of Socfin Cambodia, said that since the company launched its rubber plantation in 2009, approximately 2,000 hectares of rubber have become harvestable, making it economically reasonable for Socfin to open its own processing factory.
...
According to Boedt, once the factory is operational it will have the capacity to produce 25 tonnes of dry rubber per day, or approximately 8,000 tonnes per year. He added that the company has not yet decided whether it will sell the rubber it produces directly to the international market or if it will continue selling through local traders.
International rubber prices have risen year-on-year, and Boedt said that he believes that trend will continue in 2018. “The probability that the price will go up is higher than the probability that the price will go down,” he said.
...
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Cambodia exported over 150,000 tonnes of rubber in the first 11 months of the year, amounting to total revenue of $249 million'.
Over to the cashew news. The Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 4) reports on how huge Vietnam's slice of the Cambodian cashew concern is:
'Vietnam, a major buyer of the Cambodian cashew nut, has unveiled a plan to purchase cashews in even greater volumes during next year’s harvest season, giving hope to farmers who rely on selling their crops at good prices from February through May.
Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon told The Post yesterday that Cambodian officials and the Vietnamese Cashew Association have been working together to form a committee on cashew production which is expected to draft an agreement to export more Cambodian cashews to its eastern neighbour.
...
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Cambodia is producing a total of about 104,268 tonnes of cashews annually. Most production comes out of the Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham provinces, which account for 29 percent and 18 percent respectively of the country’s total production.
During this past harvest season Vietnam bought around 102,000 tonnes of cashew nuts from Cambodia, explained Sakhon, with the few tonnes of cashews remaining being locally processed.
He added that Vietnam is currently importing about 1.2 million tonnes of cashews from India annually, and that it also exports about 3.2 million tonnes of processed cashews to international markets each year.
Um Uon, president of the Sambo Prey Kub Cashew Nut Association in Kampong Thom province, said yesterday that the prices of cashews this past harvest season were relatively good, coming in between 5,000 riel ($1.25) to 8,000 riel ($2) per kilo depending on quality'.
The Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 7) notes how the non-Vietnamese part of the value chain is to be propped up with help of South-Korean interests:
'Local agricultural firm Camcashew signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with an obscure South Korean company yesterday with the aim of exporting 10,000 tonnes of processed cashew nuts next year, claiming that the two firms had reserved $100 million to fund the agreement.
Camcashew, a joint venture between a Cambodian and Malaysian firm, signed the MoU with Kim Ki Chul, president of South Korea’s Naroo Marine Company Limited.
Syaiful Hazreen, director of Camcashew, said yesterday that $80 million would be spent to purchase 40,000 tonnes of raw cashew nuts while the remaining $20 million would be spent on purchasing a 400-hectare plot of land and machinery for processing the raw kernels.
...
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Cambodia produces a total of about 104,000 tonnes of raw cashews annually. Most production comes from the provinces of Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham, which account for 29 percent and 18 percent respectively.
In the first 11 months of this year, Cambodia exported 71,293 tonnes of raw cashews to Vietnam, Thailand, China and India. Vietnam alone absorbed 98 percent of these exports'.
Then back to Vietnam, which according to the Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 11) has set forward a benevolent idea:
'The Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacas) gave the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture a $66,000 grant late last week to support cashew production in the Kingdom, according to ministry officials.
According to Hean Vanhan, director general at General Directorate of Agriculture, the grant will go toward enacting a four-year plan that will see 1 million cashew trees planted on a new 500,000 hectare farm by 2022.
...
In the first 11 months of this year, Cambodia exported 71,293 tonnes of raw cashews to Vietnam, Thailand, China and India. Vietnam alone absorbed 98 percent of these exports [!]. Vietnam exports approximately 3.2 million tonnes of processed cashews to the international market each year'.
Then beyond the tried and trusted there are the new initiatives. The Phnom Penh Post (Dec 26):
'The Agriculture Ministry is set to sign a mango export investment deal with a Chinese firm worth up to $50 million, the second such deal in the country, Agriculture Minister Veng Sokhon said yesterday.'
...
Mong Reththa, vice chairman of the board of directors at Mong Reththy Group Co Ltd, said mangoes currently had the most potential for the international market, but farming techniques needed to be improved.
“In order to reach the international market, we need to have techniques and standards for maintaining a mango farm, then focusing on packaging and freezing,” he said.
The foreign investment deals would help spur family farms to adopt more technical methods and “add value for the farmer”, Reththa said. Kingdom Fruits International Co Ltd, a sister company of Mong Reththy Group, was the first to export mangoes abroad'.
Hazard
Then some more feedback concerning pesticides witnessed in Thai horticulture.
The Nation (Dec. 3):
'Recent research has disclosed that serious contamination from persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and herbicides in food and the environment poses health threats to the Thai public.
The research, from Ecological Alert and Recovery – Thailand (EARTH) and Thailand Pesticide Alert Network (Thai-PAN), found that Samut Sakhon had the highest levels of dioxin contamination. The level of contaminants known as polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans (PBDD/Fs) was 33 times higher than European Union standards, Meanwhile, 46 per cent and 55 per cent respectively of fruit and vegetables were found to contain pesticides and herbicides.
The organisations said that toxic substances posed serious health threats and the authorities had not put enough measures and regulations in place to protect the public'.
The Bangkok Post (Dec. 7) then demonstrates what consumer protectors are up against:
'Thai Pesticide Alert Network (Thai-PAN) will today submit a petition to the Ministry of Industry, asking it to ban the herbicide paraquat and the pesticide chlorpyrifos, while restricting the use of glyphosate.
'The petition is timed to coincide with a meeting of the ministry's committee on hazardous chemicals which will decide on the use of the pesticides. The petition urges the committee to classify paraquat and chlorpyrifos as a "hazardous" substance which will lead to a total ban on production, imports and exports or even buying and selling. Regarding glyphosate, the network wants the committee to monitor the use strictly.
...
Witoon Lianchamroon, director of Biothai, an advocacy group on sustainable agriculture, said he was worried the decision of the committee is likely to be swayed as two of the 10 members on the committee are from chemical companies. He said a report cited by the ministry that banning the chemicals will contribute to an economic loss of over 70 billion baht is also groundless'.
Fake
Some bits and bobs to close this entry off.
The Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 7) reports on certification, I presume on cassava:
'In a bid to decentralise the certificates of origin (COs) process to help promote international exports and ease cross-border trade, the Ministry of Commerce launched a pilot project yesterday that allows officials in the provinces of Battambang and Pailin to directly issue certification'.
Meanwhile the Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 8) notes that palm sugar growers / traders have other problems:
'Takeo provincial authorities shut down 11 small-scale operations yesterday for making fake palm sugar, and say they have plans to close more
According to Lumpong Commune Police Chief Nob Phary, police have identified 43 palm sugar operations in Bati district that are suspected of cooking down white sugar to imitate the more expensive palm sugar'.
Phnom Penh Post (Dec. 14):
'The Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts is urging provincial authorities to dissolve [really?] spurious palm sugar operations, after 43 sham sugar producers were shut down earlier this week.
On Tuesday, Minister Cham Prasidh ordered provincial officials to investigate and close any facility that appears to cut its Khmer palm sugar with similar substances, such as white sugar, in order to keep the industry in line with international standards'.
Then in a possible positive swing Thailands The Nation (Dec. 17) reports that with the rubber boom rebounding forest encroachment may also be wound back:
'MID the plunging price of rubber latex to below Bt50 per kilogram, concerned officials are now eyeing the potential for eliminating the encroachment of rubber trees in forests. As well as returning forests back to nature, the move would help reduce the volume of latex and thus push up prices'.
