Download Potential of family agriculture

Family Agriculture:
Potential Sector for
Sustainable Rural Development
in Cambodia
By Yang Saing Koma (CEDAC)
Why family agriculture is
important in Cambodia
 Around 2.2mil. families in Cambodia. Around 75 to
80 % of them are small farmer families, mainly rice
farmers
 Family agriculture absorbs about 60 to 70 % of active
workforce; ensures national food security, and
contributes significantly to GDP. It is the biggest
private sector in Cambodia !
 Symbol of our cultural identity, contribution to rural
landscape diversity (Natural and cultural beauty of
rural areas)
The socio-economic and political stability of the nation depend
on the wellbeing of the small farmers !
Potential of family
agriculture
 Family agriculture ensure food security and
employment opportunity, especially for the
growing number of young people
 Vast land resources can be used for
development of family agriculture (ca. 3 mill ha)
 Growing demand on local agriculture products,
especially for organic product
 Competitiveness of ecological-based family
agriculture in replacing import and in export,
especially by delivering organic product, such
as organic traditional rice varieties
CEDAC and Partner’s
Experiences
 CEDAC: 14 provinces, 1000 villages, 900 farmer
groups, Farmer and Nature Net (FNN) consisting of
250 village-based farmer association (and it is growing)
 Productivity/income is double; transition from
subsistence to subsistence and market oriented sector
through capacity building (human capital) in developing
innovation in ecological agriculture and in
producer/marketing organizations and communitybased finance services (social and financial capital)
 For example, SRI farmers produce surplus of good
quality rice for the market, and SRI enables them to
devote parts of rice field for diversification
Recommendation for Rural
Development Policies and
Strategies
 Investment in participatory research and
extension in ecological agriculture
 Support the development of genuine
democratic producer/marketing
organization and agriculture related small and
community-based enterprises.
 Allocating land for absorbing growing
farming population rather than allocating to
private concession for large-scale agribusiness.
Let‘s achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG)
through ecological-based family agriculture