Rapid Rice Market Chain Appraisal

From 18-23 March 2009, Mr. YIM Sok Sophors went to CSPPM (Civil Society and Pro-Poor Market) project in order to assist the project staff for conducting a field study on rapid rice market chain appraisal in 29 villages across 8 communes, 4 districts of Kompot province, Cambodia. More detail about the study is to focus about the market chain of rice product in 29 villages which are the village members of rice producer communities supported by the CSPPM project. During that time, Mr Yim Sok Sophors has met and discussed with the project officer and the other project staff relating to objectives and methodologies of this study. The study mainly focused on the demand and supply of rice product from the studied villages, which mainly concentrated to organic rice product (Mliss and Romduol varieties) that is high market demand.

As the result, it is able to found out that the demand of rice is higher than the supply which is produced by the rice farmer producers. It is good market opportunities for local farmers but they need to pay more attention to the promotion strategies of their unique product (organic rice) and to ensure a good linkage among their appropriate market channels. Furthermore, it is able to know that most of rice product produced by the local farmers are supplied to the collectors and then the collectors will distributed to rice millers and wholesalers within the studied districts. At the end, the most rice product will be exported to neighboring country, Vietnam.

Field visit by IOM-Cambodia

On 05-06 March 2006, there was a field visit conducted by a team from IOM organization included the representative from Ministry of Women's Affairs of Cambodia to the project's target area of the project "Improvement of the most Vulnerable Families for Protection of Human Trafficking and unsafe Migration" in Svay Rieng and Prey Veng provinces.



This team was seeking to understand about the situation and progress of the project implementation by CEDAC. During the the field visit, the visit team met with key farmers in order to interview with them relating to the progress in term of agricultural adoption/adaption and livelihood improvement under the intervention of this project. It was to note that there were many farmers had grown vegetables and most of the farmers in Prey Veng provinces were working on sugar palm production. The visit team suggested that it is good if the project can like those farmer producer groups to the local market especially the markets which is located nearby the Cambodia-Vietnam border, Bavet. It is good market opportunity thanks to there is big demand.

Field study on the adoption/adaptation of SRI technqiue

On 03-04 March 2009, Mr. YIM Sok Sophors conducted a field study on adoption/adaptation of SRI (System of Rice Intensification) in Thnoung village, Sdao Koang commune, Baphnom district, Prey Veng province, Cambodia.

The study aimed to know about the changes of farmers' practices in term of rice production in the village, especially to see the differences before and after the intervention of CEDAC's project in that studied village. It is to note that this study is only a part of the whole study on SRI in 20 villages within CEDAC's target villages. 10 farmers including the chief of village based farmer association and its members as well as the non SRI farmers were also invited to join the group discussion. To seek for more detail information, seveal farmers were in-depth interviewed.

Based on the result of this study, it is able to know that some techniques of SRI have been adapted by the villagers such as:

1. 80% of the farmer families in the village have reduced the amount of rice seed for broadcasting on the seedbed. 22% of seed quantity is reduced as the previously used 57.5 kg/ha and it is now only 45 kg/ha.
2. The age of seedling is also reduced according to the rice varieties
   
3. The number of rice stem per hill is also reduced from averagely 6 stems per hill but it is now only 3 stems per hill
4. Farmers have tried to make further compost of supplying to their rice fields. The average amound of compost is increased from 1750 kg/family/year up to 2425 kg/family/year.
   
5. The rice yield is also increased from 1.1 t/ha before the project's intervention up to 1.87 t/ha at the current time.
   

However, there are some techniques that farmers have not wildely practiced, such as:

1. The size of seedbed, but they just improve the preparation
2. Uproot only healthy seedlings for transplanting
   
3. Transplanting in row and equal from one hill to another
4. Transplanting immediately after uprooting
   
5. Weeding, water management, soil leveling are not widely adapted,

In short, it is able to conclude that farmers have adapted the techniques of SRI that enabled them to increase the rice yield significantly. However, there is a need of effort in order to mainstream other techniques of SRI to the farmers in the communities.

Meeting at EC office

On 25 February, I participated in the meeting which taken place at the EC office in Phnom Penh. Several NGOs preventatives (ZOA, MEDICAM, NDP , and CEDAC) participated in the meeting with Mr. Dirk Meganck, Director for Asia and Central Asia of the European Aid. The meeting lasted only for one hour started from 14:30 to consult between NGOs/civil societies and the EC (the donor agency).

The main topic discussed during that time is NGOs law that will be set up by the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC). It is to note that the EC on one hand supports to RGC and another hand supports to NGOs/civil society. NGOs/Civil society believe that that NGOs law set up by the RGC will provide negatively effect to them especially the NGOs/civil society that are working involve in human right and advocacy. During the meeting, NGO representatives raised that EC should work with the RGC to develop a good NGOs law because “No Law is Better than Having a Bad Law”, this is what one of the participants mentioned during the meeting.

The NGOs afraid that the RGC will set up the law to control the budget of their NGOs because they have heard that the RGC wants to control budget of NGOs for anti-terrorism, and NGOs need to request budget from the Ministry of Finance for their operation. In that way, it will reduce the independence of NGOs, this is what the participants mentioned. Some participant said that we can submit the financial report including sources of budget to the RGC, but we need to have own bank account. In this way, it is transparency and can be a model for the RGC to follow us as well.

Ultimately, in dealing with this matter, the participants suggested that NGOs should jointly develop the content of the NGOs law and submit it to the RGC to take into consideration. Additionally, they want to define what is POLITIC because they afraid that the RGC accuses them to be involved in politics and terminate their NGOs.

Another thing, participant raised that the EC should reduce some criteria/requirements because it is difficult for small local NGOs to access grant from the EC for each call for proposal, only big NGOs can access to the grant. In return, Mr. Dirk Meganck responded that we cannot satisfy all NGOs and he also implied that small NGOs are lack of management and transparency despite majority of them are not registered properly at the ministry of interior.

Field Visit to Prey Veng and Svay Rieng Provinces

From 23-24 February 2009, I went to Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces because I wanted to see the progress of vegetable growing conducted by the cooperating farmers of the project “Linking Farmers to Market”. Based on what I have seen the practices of farmers in the field, I could note that there are still many farmers have grown vegetable even now it is the late rainy season. Some of farmers have been using water from pond and others from the drilled well. I see that those farmers experienced of vegetable growing for a few years but they have not yet understood so well about negative impact of chemical fertilizer and pesticide. Currently, most of them use chemical fertilizer and pesticide for vegetable production, but it is used in the small amount. But after cooperating with the project, they wanted to reduce or stop using of chemicals.



However, there is a difficult for vegetable farmer producer in this year due to the price is now hugely decreased if compare to the last year. It is not good to benefit farmers as they have done previously. Based on the individual interview with farmers, they raised that this is because of much amount of vegetable is imported from many other places in the country especially Vietnam. In such condition, the local farmers lost of market opportunity in term of selling their vegetable products and it is not a good factor to encourage the local producer to try more effort. At the same time, the local consumers also have not got healthy vegetables for consumption because they are using imported vegetable from Vietnam which is cheaper than the local products that contains high chemicals. The main reason why the local producers cannot compete with imported vegetables from Vietnam is the production cost.

On the other hand, I could note that most of the cooperating farmers with the project are the medium farmers in term of their livelihood standard. Therefore, the project needs to make more effort to persuade the poorest families to become the members of the vegetable farmer producer groups so that the project can contribute to poverty alleviation among the poorest families. It is to highlight that the project expected to choose 150 poorest families out of 500 total target families.

THE PROJECT’S ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS FROM 16 TO 23 FEBRUARY 2009

1.Facilitating the commune workshop with sugar palm producers

On 17-18 Feb 2009, the project staff has facilitated one 2-day communal workshop on the topic of formation of sugar palm producer groups. 26 participants (5 women) attended the workshop. It is to note that representatives of provincial department of women’s affairs, district office of women’s affairs, women affairs at the commune level as well as village chief have also participated. It is to mention that the project staff has presented about the strategy of forming the sugar palm producer groups at the village level as well as the federation of sugar palm producer groups at the commune level. The groups are empowered if they formed into federation/network.



Additionally, it is to remind that 159 families in 5 villages of Prey Tung commune are interested in sugar palm producer groups, and now 2 sugar palm producer groups with 29 members have already formed in the commune. Furthermore, the governmental officials especially the local authorities are also interested in the idea of forming sugar palm producer groups because they want sugar palm producers to be formed together for collective business activity.

2.Organizing group training for key farmers in Prey Tung commune

One training session for 16 key farmers (2 women) at the commune level was facilitated by the project staff. The main topic of the training focused on ecological chicken raising. As the result of the training, the key farmers are interested in how to provide mix-feed to chicken especially the chicks, improved sanitation and to improve the method of designing the chicken house.

3.Progress of agricultural innovations practices in Prey Tung commune

Vegetable Growing

Based on the data information from the village chief and key farmers, 36 farmers have applied the technique of vegetable growing. Several kinds of vegetables have been grown by the cooperating farmers such as cucumber, water convolvulus, bottle gourd, wax gourd, egg plant, green petiole, etc. the average arable land for vegetable growing is 0.04 ha for each family. But there are some families cultivated in the bigger size as they grow water melon and string bean in the rice field.

It is to note that there are some positive changes in term of technical practices under the project intervention, those are mentioned as follows:

- The cooperating farmers conducted poly culture (integrated vegetable growing): farmers grow many kinds of vegetables in their vegetable gardens which previously they practiced monoculture;
- The cooperating farmers have adopted the technique of making liquid compost and solid compost. They are likely pay more attention to produce natural manure instead of using chemical fertilizer especially for family consumption;
- Farmers have improved the designation of vegetable garden and rows as well as fencing method;
- It is to note that the farmers are able to prolong the period of supplying vegetable for family consumption. Furthermore, 20 out of 36 families who have grown vegetables are able to sell their vegetables for generating further family income;

Ecological Chicken Raising (ECR)

23 families have adapted the technique of ecological chicken raising, they have applied some of 13 principles of ECR. Only 2 families have built the chicken fences, but the rest of the cooperating families have renovated the chicken house for hatching and other technical practices such as:

- Farmers have provided regularly the clean water to chicken especially they use medicinal plants soak into the water;
- Farmers have conducted de-worming by using herbal medicine;
- Additionally, farmers have also improved the sanitation especially they regularly clean feed container and water container;

Based on the impression from farmers, the number of farmers who will improve the technique of chicken raising will be increased simultaneously.

4. Further remarks

It is to note that during this period from February to May 2009, the sugar palm producers are busy in producing sugar palm so that it is difficult for the project staff to make appointment with them for the training or meeting. The convenient time for them is between 11 am and 2pm.

5. Concluding Remarks

In conclusion, the sugar palm producers are interested in the formation of sugar palm producer groups because it is easier for them to conduct collective selling of the sugar, they can learn knowledge and skill of producing good quality sugar as well as other agricultural techniques from each other, they want to improve negotiation power with the middlemen/merchants for a better price. Furthermore, the local authorizes especially the commune chief and village chief are active in providing support to the formation of sugar palm producer groups.

Moreover, it is able to conclude that the number of farmers who apply agricultural innovations promoted by the project will be increased gradually. From now on, the application of chicken raising will be enhanced, because during the individual follow up advice conducted by the project staff, farmers promised that they will practice it especially among the sugar palm producers.

Project Fact Finding

From 9-13 Feb 2009, a fact finding on agriculture situation in Kor Kor district, Pursat province and Mong Resey district, Battambang province was conducted by the Mr. Yim Sok Sophors, a staff members of Field program unit of CEDAC. The fact finding was carried out through interview and discussion with several key informants such as the representatives from provincial department of agriculture, district office of each studied district, the local authorities including the village chief and commune council members as well as the villagers.

Based on the result of the fact finding, the result found out is available to use for proposal writing in collaboration between CEDAC and TPO for a joint proposal to the EC (European Commission).

Progress of IOM project

In this month, January 2009, there is a good progress in term of vegetable growing adopting/adapting by the cooperating farmers. The number of farmers have significantly increased if compare to the previous months. Additionally, we note that they are applying the technique of vegetable growing very well such as seedbed preparation, seed selection, pest control based on the principle of ecological agriculture, ordinarily, farmers use botanical pesticide and other mechanical method to control pest in their farms.



According to the result of vegetable growing, farmers can increase agricultural production especially the supply of healthy vegetable for family consumption and to generate further income for the family. It is able to mitigate the dependency of vegetable import from Vietnam as well so the domestic family agricultural product is increased.

In this month, Mr. Chhin Saray who is the YCL (Young Community Leader) also have been working involved in awareness raising on negative impact of chemical pesticide to human health and environment. It is really that he works in that area, Thnot commune in Kompong Ror district, and another one commune called Chantrea which is located in Chantrea district, Svay Rieng province. Most of the farmers in that area are using huge quantity of chemical pesticide and fertilizer for rice cultivation and they lack of knowledge on prevention method and the negative impact of those chemical to human being and environment as well as the economy. With our work in that area, the project staff have cooperated actively with the village chief to arrange some main events to raise the understanding of local farmers on chemical pesticide. Currently, key farmers have gained more understanding on chemical pesticide and they are playing critical role in disseminating the message of negative impact of pesticide to the other farmers in the village.

On the other hand, the project has also conducted individual follow up visit to sugar palm farmer producer in Sithor Kandal district, Prey Veng province. They have understood more and more about the collective selling of their products in order to increase the negotiation power with middlemen for their collective benefit. It is to note that the activity relating to supporting to form sugar palm producer groups should be formed in the dry season because it is a good time for farmers to produce sugar palm and it is able to organize collective selling among the group member as well.

Finally, the conclusion is that the number of farmers who applied agricultural innovations especially vegetable growing have gradually increased to meet their family need and supply for local market. The number of key farmers who can play important role in disseminating agricultural innovations in the community is also increased as they have learned well from the project. The local authority is good cooperation with the project and they support and participate in the activity of the project.

Field mission to Agriculture Livelihood Project in Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia

Summary of the FIELD MISSION SUPPORT to
Agriculture Livelihood Program for the Sok San Indigenous Community,
Koh Ngiek district, Mondulkiri province
From 20-24 January 2009


I. INTRODUCTION

From 20-24 January 2009, Mr. Kin Mengse, senior program officer and Mr. Yim Sok Sophors, junior program officer of CEDAC have conducted a 5-day field supporting mission to the project ALP. The purpose of the mission is to review the project’s progress and to coach the project staff in facilitating some important events of the project like SRI workshop and project assessment workshop. The activities relating to the field mission are conducted in different characteristics as follows:

-Meeting with the project staff to review the project progress (comparison between the actual result and the expectation)
-Field visit and individual interview with the cooperating farmers
-Demonstrating the project staff how to facilitate the SRI workshop, the project assessment workshop,
-Wrap-up meeting with the project’s donor, WWF

II. MAIN ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS

1. Reflection meeting with the project staff

First of all, the support officers and the project staff sat together to conduct an overview of the project especially to see the progress of project implementation and results in comparison to the project’s expectation which have set in the project document.
The quarterly activity plan and expectation was also raised for overview among the project staff. It is to note that some of the activities have been achieved well but some other activities are needed to be done later on.

However, the project staff needs to take more attention to some activities such as:

-Providing award to 12 farmers who have adopted/adapted successfully the agricultural innovations promoted by the project
-Thematic workshop on agricultural technique
-Village general meeting
-Capacity building for key farmers

2. Individual farmer interview

Several farmers in the target villages were met and interviewed about their progress after cooperation with the project. The knowledge and actual technical practice of farmers were assessed by asking questions and direct visit to the farm.

It is to note that 4 farmers have already grown vegetable in Klang Lei village, they have prepared vegetable garden the average size of 0.01-0.02 ha. The main thing to encourage farmers in adapting vegetable growing is the exposure visit that was organized by the project staff to Ratanakiri province. Some farmers bought materials and equipments for vegetable growing after coming back from the visit.
It is to note the project staff has organized one exposure visit to Ratanakiri province and key farmers of ALP are more motivated since they have directly seen the practice of indigenous farmers in Ratanakiri province, additionally they are also interested in setting up community shop as it provides much benefit to the group members.



Concerning to the updated information of agricultural innovations, the project staff needs to pay attention to collect the reliable data information, there in fact more farmers have applied innovations but we could collect some of them only. Alternatively, the project staff should train community field assistants and key farmers to help in collecting the data.

3. Facilitating the workshops on SRI and Progress Assessment Workshop

Mr. Chiev Sopheak, the project officer of ALP has facilitated the SRI workshop and the project assessment workshop under participation with the field mission team. The supporting officers and the project staff have discussed together about the agenda and methodology for organizing each event. It is to note there were over than 50 farmers have participated in each workshop; they come and shared what they have done either agricultural technical practice (SRI, vegetable growing) or social farmer groups (collective saving groups).

Those events are necessary important to provide opportunities for cooperating farmers and non-cooperating farmers as well as the local authorities to keep in touch with the progress of the project
It is to note that the action plan of each individual farmer has been developed and hopefully there will be more and more farmers have applied innovations for the next season.

The project staff should organize more meetings or trainings with farmers in groups, it will motivate farmers to apply agricultural innovations and the level of dissemination is enlarged. The reflection meeting or workshop with the participation of cooperating farmers and non-cooperating farmers as well as the local stakeholders is necessary important to ensure a good project’s impact.

4. Meeting with WWF

At the end of the mission day, Mr. Kin Mengse has presented the result of the field mission to WWF at the office of WWF in Mondulkiri provincial town. It was a chance to present the updated and finding of the field mission and also discussed about the review of the project relating to budget and financial report, activities plan for the second year, etc.

During the discussion, some agreed points come out as follows:
-CEDAC will prepare the budget plan for the second year of the project, CEDAC will also revise some budget lines, such as the salary for the project staff and field mission to the project,
-Prepare the activity plan of the project for the second year implementation
-Remind the project staff to send regularly the project activity report to WWF

Mr. Kin Mengse also shared some ideas relating to the training on leadership that was organized by CEDAC for several time, the concept of professional CBO that can play role to provide development services in the community. On the other hand, WWF also shared about the project concerning to aquaculture (fish raising) which is funded by the commune, if CEDAC interest for this project, it is really good, WWF said.

III. CONCLUSION

Based on the result of field mission, it is able to conclude that the project has conducted several important events at the end of the first year in order to sum-up and present the result of the project to the local stakeholders included the cooperating farmers, non-cooperating farmers, local authorities (village chief and commune council members). Additionally, the rice yield of SRI practice is almost double comparing to the yield of traditional practice.

Furthermore, it is to note that farmers are well understood about the advantages of collective saving groups and they are interested in participating in the group. Furthermore, there are more farmers have grown vegetable during this time. Additionally, it is to note that some key farmers are good potential in applying agricultural innovations and they are now becoming a good model farmer in the target villages of the project.

IV. RECOMMENDATION

These are some recommendation for improving the project:

-The project staff needs to make effort in updating the progress data of technical innovations otherwise the project will not be able to reach its real situation and reliable data. In fact, the number of farmers who have applied technical innovations
-The project staff should invite representative from WWF to join the important events which organized by the project, it will be helpful to ensure good information flow among the implementing agency and funding agency,
-Mr. Cheav Sopheak needs to send regularly the monthly activity report of the project to WWF so that WWF will be able to keep in touch with the progress of the project,
-The project staff should contact the school teachers and health centers for demonstration of vegetable growing
-The capacity building on budget management of the project is needed to provide for the project staff

Additionally, WWF will conduct a field mission to the project’s target area in order to see the progress of the project especially the level of agricultural adoption by the target farmers.
CEDAC will prepare budget plan for the second year of the project, financial report of the project in year 1, activity plan for year 2, and those will be sent to WWF at the first week of February 2009.

It is to note that CEDAC will revise some budget lines concerning to the salary of the project’s staff and another line on supporting mission to the project, CEDAC proposed it to be conducted every 2 months.

Linking Small Farmers to Market

Concerning to the project "Linking Farmers to Market for Rural Prosperity in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces of Cambodia" which has been implementing by CEDAC (Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture)is now moving on the progress. It is to note that IDE (International Development Enterprises) which is the funding agency of this project has recently facilitated to select PEA (Private Extension Agents), PEA will be the one who link farmers access to high quality agriculture input supplies, specialized on vegetable seeds and drip irrigation equipments and so on.

Regarding to the farmers' activities in the field, vegetable growing have been applying after harvesting rice. It is a good time for vegetable growing in Cambodia meanwhile farmers have already harvested rice in December and January and there are some remaining raining water in the rice field or ponds so that they can grow vegetable, the vegetable is mainly used for family consumption. Actually, most of Cambodian farmers are highly dependent on raining water as they have no access to irrigation scheme like canal, etc. By the reason, farmers are hard to grow vegetable especially in the dry season meanwhile they have no sufficient water for watering their crops. The arable land is kept free without any cover crops, it indicates that farmers have not used as much as possible the productivity of arable land and poor knowledge and skill in term of soil nutrient management in the dry season, the rice straw were slashed and burned without understanding of its advantages for covering the land.

60%-70% of vegetables in Cambodia has been imported from Vietnam (IDE Cambodia), so it is a good potential for Cambodian farmers to grow vegetables for domestic supply. But the constraint is high production cost that is not able to compete with imported products. SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVE AGRICULTURAL FARMING SHOULD BE CONSIDERED!