Phnom Domreiy Romeal Organic Rice Federation

By Nhep Meng Cheang

 

Sahak Poan Srov Sakreiy Rieng Phnom Domreiy Romeal, named in English “Doreiy Romeal Mountain Organic Rice Federation” was founded on 6^th November 2007. Four organic rice communities are the members of the federation. 450 families are the members of this federation. The federation is located in Trapaing Chhouk Village, in Tramkak district of Takeo Province. The objective of this organic rice federation is to improve food production and income generation capacities of the small scale farmers through the application of ecological agricultural innovations, conducting collective buying and selling of organic rice and normal rice, and negotiating for a better price of their rice product with the middlemen and other rice market actors. Please read more….

LOCAL HUMAN RESOURCES AND THEIR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

By: Him Neun,

Association for Local Development and Agriculture (ALDA) is an initiative started by CEDAC in 2008 in Takeo, Kompong Speu and Kompot provinces. The association was formed by clustering interested former graduates of CEDAC’s Young Community Leader[1] (YCL) and farmer promoter programs. ALDA is a sub-program of CEDAC Field Program Unit. The main purpose of this program to ensure that there is are sufficient competent community human resources committed to train, guide, advice and provide services to other farmers, NGOs and institutions in their community and neighboring communities. It is considered of first rank importance to build the capacity and promote cooperation among young community farmers and other farmers to enhance their careers and develop  specializations.

On February 25, 2009, CEDAC facilitated the organization of  interested young farmer community leaders in Takeo and Kompong Speu provinces into ALDA with title Rural Youth Association for Development (RYAD). The association was established with the objectives of:
-          Improving youth cooperation and mutual help
-          Increasing job and career opportunities
-          Building up the capacity of each other
-          Developing rural youth to be an organization that plays an important role in providing training and facilitating services in the fields of Agriculture, Health, Education and Environment.

Initially, the association consisted of 11 members (6 women) who had completed the Young Community Leader course (YCL) with CEDAC. Currently, the association has 19 memberships (6 women) with 398 USD as supporting fee. In general, RYAD has been able to generate a gross income of approximately 800 USD per month to support its operations. Members bring in a monthly salary from their services such as promoting service fee from PRS-EU project, hosting NGOs exchange visit, monthly salary (CFA of CEDAC project), data collection, training service fee from participants and selling farmer magazines. In addition, to strengthen the sustainability of the association all members agreed to set aside 3% of the association’s monthly gross income as a RYAD supporting fee and regular collective saving. Up to date RYAD has run its operation full one year with driving some achievement as following:

1- Community Assistance:
(RYAD) has been playing an important role by providing support, advice  and guidance to local   communities to improve their mutual help. They have facilitated farmers to set up village-based associations, saving groups, and collective business groups like community rice mill, animal feed processing, and local seed producer, applying community participatory development approaches. RYAD also assisted the community to set up saving-for-self-reliance groups at the village level and facilitates the administration of these groups by helping with the processes of saving, lending, bookkeeping and fund management of the money paid back. Besides providing social and business ideas to farmers, RYAD association has assisted communities to apply innovative agricultural practices such as System of Rice Intensification (SRI), ecological chicken-raising, fish-raising, home gardening, integrated farming, saving compost and improving fertilizer management, and reducing chemical pesticide and fertilizer use.

2- Enhancing Capacity of Members:
RYAD not only seeks to support communities but also to strengthen the skills and capacity of its members.  Their knowledge related to agricultural practices was improved through attendance in training and capacity building sessions organized by CEDAC, learning from expert farmers and producing best practice documentation. Family income of RYAD members was increased through practicing the agriculture techniques themselves at home. Moreover, RYAD provided more opportunities to members through additional training activities and hosting exchange visits. Each member can earn a salary on average of 70USD per month by providing the training service, hosting NGOs exchange visit, data collection and selling farmer magazine.

Though the association is still young, it has made rapid strides and members are contributing to communities for positive changes. Some members have identified their specialization and have been improving their own self development.

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[1] YCL is the one approach of CEDAC rural development program  to improve quality of knowledge and life of young farmer

Chea Borey: From Construction Worker to Agri-Entrepreneur

Chea Borey is 27 years old and lives with his parents and four other family members in Prey Kuy village, Trapaing Sre commune, Mesang district, Prey Veng province. Borey stopped studying at grade 12 in 2004 after failing the Bac II exam. For six months afterwards, he worked as a security guard in Phnom Penh, and then became a construction worker.  During the following years, he worked hard to achieve the skills of a master craftsman in house building. However, his income remained low, around US$100-150/year, and he often had to find work in other provinces. Read more...

Collective Savings Group

Prey Chou village is located in the Pol Pel commune, Trakak district, Takeo province. There are 237 families in this village. There are 3 different collective savings groups within the village, which are a VFA, a women’s group and a youth group. All three of these groups were formed through facilitating support from the project.

The VFA was set up in 2005. Now, the association has 25 members with a total capital of 5,133,000 riels. The women’s group was formed in November 2008 and it currently has 15 members and a capital of 1,698,300 riels. Additionally, the youth group was formed in February 2009. There are 15 members within the youth group with a capital of 668,100 riels.

Therefore, 55 out of 237 total families in the village are members of savings groups, which is equal to 23% of the total families. The total capital in those saving group is 7,499,400 riels (approximately 1800 USD). Based on interviews with the representatives of those saving groups, the saving groups are very important for the group members and other villagers because the groups enable them to access saving and credit services that are provided from within their own village.
According to the group representatives and the group members, they are happy with the groups because they improve solidarity and mutual help among the group members and members learn about new agricultural knowledge and practical experiences from other members during the monthly meetings. This knowledge enables them to improve their own agricultural practices and increase their family income as a result.

The interviews revealed the following positive aspects of these savings groups:

- The management committee members demonstrate good commitment because they volunteer to work for the group members without being paid for services.
- The process of operating saving and credit services is good. The group members save money and repay the loans to the groups regularly.
- The monthly meeting is organized and occurs consistently, so that the group members can follow up with the progress of their groups and can also learn new ideas at the meeting as well.
- The village chiefs willingly participate and cooperate. The village chief is also a member of the savings group. The chief adds support and cooperation and his presence is really important because the village chief will give his signature on the group’s loan contracts.

However, the group representatives mentioned the following weak points of the groups:

- A few members do not save regularly. Normally, the members need to deposit their savings at regular meetings, but a few of the poorest families do not have money to deposit during the meeting, so they pay in monthly savings after the meeting day.
- The amount of capital saved is low so that the saving capital of the group only slightly increases from month to month.
- The collective savings of the youth groups is as good as the other groups. Some adult members would like to withdraw from the group.
- Some members of the management committees of the groups are not fully involved in group management because they are busy tending to their personal work and duties.

Group representatives and group members said during these interviews that they want to form a network of all the savings groups in the villages, to increase the number of group members to reach 50% of all families in the village and to increase the amount of capital available to provide credit services to group members and other villagers. Once the saving groups have sufficient capital, the groups’ can help reduce the cash outflow to outsiders. Finally, they want to improve group management.

In general, the farmers have a good understanding of the advantages of collective saving. Additionally, by setting up savings groups, farmers can access credit for investing in agricultural practices. Also important, the savings groups are helpful in preventing huge amounts of money from flowing out of the villages to outsiders.

Rice cultivation through SRI practices

Nget Mao is a woman farmer from Trapaing Sragnge village, Angtasom commune, Tramkok district, Takeo province. She has contact with the project since 2003.There are five people in her family. The family has 0.7 hectares of rice field, with two cattle that can be used as draft animals for farming. She mentioned that she has adopted and adapted the SRI techniques since 2003 on a plot of rice field of 0.1 hectares. The first experiment was conducted in order to see the result of SRI. Now, she cultivates all 0.7 ha of her rice field using SRI techniques. Particularly, she has applied the technique of transplanting in rows on 0.33 ha. She mentioned that it is difficult for her to use the string while transplanting in rows, which is why she could apply this technique on only part of the field.

Mao has adopted/adapted the following SRI techniques:

- Selecting only full grain seeds for propagation by soaking seeds in water with the combination of some salts.
- Preparing raised seedbeds and soil leveling. Previously she had 3 seedbeds about 0.1 ha, but now she has reduced the number of seedbeds to only 2 plots of 0.08 ha. She added that she increased the quantity of compost for those seedbeds.
- Reducing the quantity of seed. She previously used 60 kg for 3 seedbeds but she currently uses only 18 kg for 2 seedbeds. Therefore, she reduced the amount of seed used by 42 kg after applying the principles of SRI. She additionally uses neem leaves in combination with the seeds in order to protect those seeds from damage from pest insects.
- Transplanting healthy young seedlings aged 15 to 20 days old.
- Transplanting only 1-2 seedlings per hill, which is quite different from her conventional practice of transplanting 5-6 seedlings.
- Moreover, she conducted other SRI techniques such as improving soil health by applying natural fertilizer (compost), frequently weeding in order to control the weeds and to improve soil aeration, adjusting the water level at an appropriate level, shallow root transplanting and transplanting seedlings in rows, etc. She emphasized that she completely stopped using chemical fertilizer in 2006 because she understands the negative effects of chemical fertilizer on soil degradation, economic losses due to rising price of chemical fertilizer and on human health. Before cooperation with the project ILFARM-TK, she used chemical fertilizer at a quantity of 100 kg per year, but now she does not use it anymore, which is also good for her because it reduces production expenses. At the same time, she improved and applied the technique of compost making in order to increase the quantity of compost to replace the use of chemical fertilizer. Before cooperating with project, she was able to use compost for vegetable growing only but now the quantity of compost increased, enabling her to also use compost for the rice field.
- In 2008, she spent 479,000 riels for the production cost of rice cultivation on the rice field of 0.7 ha. However, she harvested 3,360 kg of paddy as a result (4.8 t/ha). At that time, the selling price of paddy was 1,000 riel/kg. So, the total estimated income is 3360 kg x 1,000 riel/kg = 3,360,000 riels. Therefore, she earned 3,360,000 – 479,000 = 2,881,000 riels.
- Finally, she is very happy and strongly interested in the SRI technique because she can harvest more yield through the practices of SRI. In the future, she will improve and practice other techniques. In particular, she intends to conduct the technique of transplanting in rows for the whole of her rice field as well as to increase the quantity of compost used.