Agricultural System in Cambodia

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CAMROEUN UNIVERSITY OF POLY-TECHNOLOGY

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

KUNG SEREYVUTHTopic

AgriculturAl system

in cAmbodiA

Year 1 Generation 8 Group section 1

Semester 2

Teacher : Ich darith

Academy : 2010 - 2011

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Preface

The book, Agricultural System in Cambodia, is my first achievement that is an

assignment of Culture Study in Foundation Year and Semester 2. This book is described

about many things and way related to agriculture in Cambodia, as well as in general.

Because of this is the initial achievement, so it will have the mistake appear

unexpectedly. Im looking forward for correctly criticize of learner.

Thank you

Kung Sereyvuth

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Content

I. Agricultural Definition...11). Introduction to Agriculture1

II.History of Agriculture. ....2III.Modern Agriculture...3

1). Introduction .......3

2). Safety...................................................................................................3

3). Sustainability...... ...........3

4). Affordability .....3

IV.Definition of Agricultural System ....4V. Agricultural System in Cambodia.. ..4

1). Introduction.......................4

2). Collectivization and solidarity groups...........................4

3). Rice Product.....................6

4). Other Cops.........................7

4.1). Introduction........... 7

4.2). Livestock............ ......8

4.3). Fisheries...................................8

VI. Picture related to Agriculture............................................................................9

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Part II : History of Agriculture

Agriculture was developed at least 10,000 years ago, and it has undergone

significant developments since the time of the earliest cultivation. Evidence points to theFertile Crescentof theMiddle Eastas the site of the earliest planned sowing and harvesting

of plants that had previously been gathered in the wild. Independent development of

agriculture is also believed to have occurred in northern and southernChina, Africa's Sahel,

New Guineaand several regions of theAmericas. Agricultural practices such asirrigation,

crop rotation, fertilizers, and pesticides were developed long ago but have made great

strides in the past century. TheHaber-Boschmethod for synthesizingammonium nitrate

represented a major breakthrough and allowedcrop yieldsto overcome previous constraints.

In the past century, agriculture has been characterized by enhanced productivity, the

replacement of human labor by synthetic fertilizers and pesticides,selective breeding, and

mechanization. The recent history of agriculture has been closely tied with a range ofpolitical issues includingwater pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs,

and farm subsidies. In recent years, there has been a backlash against the external

environmental effects of mechanized agriculture, and increasing support for the organic

movement andsustainable agriculture.

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Part III : Modern Agriculture

1). Introduction

Modern agriculture is a term used to describe the wide majority of production

practices employed by Americas farmers. The term depicts the push for innovation,

stewardship and advancements continually made by growers to sustainably produce higher-

quality products with a reduced environmental impact. Intensive scientific research and

robust investment in modern agriculture during the past 50 years has helped farmers double

food production.

2). Safety

The agriculture industry works with government agencies and other organizations to

ensure that farmers have access to the technologies required to support modern agriculturepractices. Farmers are supported by education and certification programs that ensure they

apply agricultural practices with care and only when required.

3). Sustainability

Technological advancements help provide farmers with tools and resources to make

farming more sustainable.

New technologies have given rise to innovations like conservation tillage, a

farming process which helps prevent land loss to erosion, water pollution and enhancescarbon sequestration.

4). Affordability

The goal of modern agriculture practices is to help farmers provide an affordable

supply of food to meet the demands of a growing population. With modern agriculture, more

crops can be grown on less land allowing farmers to provide an increased supply of food at

an affordable price.

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Part IV : Definition of Agricultural System

Agricultural System is that any method of farming may be seen as part of an

agricultural system. Inputs include seeds, water, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, and

livestock which are introduced to the plant: the buildings, machinery, and land. The outputis the produce of the farm.

Agricultural enterprisescrop or livestockdeal with such concepts as labor supply,

marketing, finances, natural resources, genetic stock, nutrition, equipment, and hazards.

While it is possible to effectively manipulate each mechanism of successful farming

individually, better results can often be obtained by treating the farming operation as a

system. The interactions, then, among system components may become more important than

how each component functions by itself. Treating production operations holistically offers

greater management flexibility, provides for more environmentally and economically sound

practices, and creates safer and healthier conditions for workers and for farm animals. NIFA

staffers conduct research, education, and extension activities in programs related directly and

indirectly to agricultural systems.

Part V : Agricultural System in Cambodia

1). Introduction

Agriculture, accounting for 90 percent of GDP in 1985 and employingapproximately 80 percent of the work force, is the traditional mainstay of the Cambodian

economy.Rice, the staple food, continued to be the principal commodity in this sector. Rice

production, a vital economic indicator in Cambodia's agrarian society, frequently fell far

short of targets, causing severe food shortages in 1979, 1981, 1984, and 1987. The plan's

1987 target for the total area to be devoted to rice cultivation was 1.77 million hectares, but

the actual area under cultivation in 1987 amounted to only 1.15 million hectares. After 1979

and through the late 1980s, the agricultural sector performed poorly. Adverse weather

conditions, insufficient numbers of farm implements and of draft animals, inexperienced and

incompetent personnel, security problems, and government collectivization policies all

contributed to low productivity.

2). Collectivization and solidarity groups

Collectivization of the agricultural sector under the Heng Samrin regimeincluded the formation of solidarity groups. As small aggregates of people living in the same

locality, known to one another, and able to a certain extent to profit collectively from their

work, they were an improvement over the dehumanized, forced-labor campsand communal

life of thePol Potera. The organization of individuals and families into solidarity groups also

made sense in the environment of resource-poor, post-war Cambodia. People working

together in this way were able to offset somewhat the shortages of manpower, draft animals,

and farm implements.

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The third category was classified as the family economy. As in the second category, the

group allocated land to families at the beginning of the season, and farm implements

continued to be their private property. In this third category, however, the familycultivated

its own assigned lot, owned the entire harvest, and sold its surplus directly to state purchasing

organizations. In the solidarity groups of this category, there was no collective effort, except

in administrative and socio-cultural matters.

The government credited the solidarity group system with rehabilitating the agricultural

sector and increasing food production. The system's contribution to socialism, however, was

less visible and significant. According toChhea Song, deputy minister of agriculture, a mere

10 percent of the solidarity groups really worked collectively in the mid-1980s (seven years

after solidarity groups had come into operation). Seventy percent of the solidarity groups

performed only some tasks in common, such as preparing the fields and planting seeds.

Finally, 20 percent of the agricultural workers farmed their land as individuals and

participated in the category of the family economy.

3). Rice Product

In 1987 statistics on rice production were sparse, and they varied depending upon

sources. Cambodian government figures were generally lower than those provided by theUN

Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) for the period from 1979 to 1985.

Political and technical factors account for the discrepancies. Data collection in the war-torn

nation is difficult because of the lack of trained personnel. Moreover, representatives of

international and of foreign relief organizations are not permitted to travel beyond Phnom

Penh,except with special permission, because ofsecurityandlogisticsproblems. In addition,

international and Cambodian sources use different benchmarks in calculating rice production.

FAO computes the harvest by calendar year; Cambodian officials and private observers basetheir calculations on the harvest season, which runs from November to February and thus

extends over two calendar years. Last of all, a substantial statistical difference exists between

milled rice and paddy (unmilled rice) production, compounding problems in compiling

accurate estimates. In terms of weight, milled rice averages only 62 percent of the original

unmilled paddy. Estimates sometimes refer to these two kinds of rice interchangeably.

Despite statistical discrepancies, there is consensus that annual unmilled rice production

during the 1979 to 1987 period did not reach the 1966 level of 2.5 million tons. Nevertheless,

since 1979, Cambodian rice production has increased gradually (except during the disastrous

1984 to 1985 season), and the nation in the late 1980s had just begun to achieve a precarious

self-sufficiency, if estimates were borne out.

Cambodia's cultivated rice land can be divided into three areas. The first and richest

(producing more than one ton of rice per hectare) covers the area of theTonle SapBasin and

the provinces ofBatdambang, Kampong Thum, Kampong Cham, Kandal, Prey Veng,

andSvay Rieng. The second area, which yields an average of four-fifths of a ton of rice per

hectare, consists ofKampotandKoh Kongprovinces along theGulf of Thailand, and some

less fertile areas of the central provinces. The third area, with rice yields of less than three-

fifths of a ton per hectare, comprises the highlands and the mountainous provinces of Preah

Vihear, Stoeng Treng, Rotanokiri (Ratanakiri), and Mondol kiri (MondolKiri).

Cambodia has two rice crops each year, a monsoon-season crop (long-cycle) and a dry-season crop. The major monsoon crop is planted in late May through July, when the first

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rains of the monsoon season begin to inundate and soften the land. Rice shoots are

transplanted from late June through September. The main harvest is usually gathered six

months later, in December. The dry-season crop is smaller, and it takes less time to grow

(three months from planting to harvest). It is planted in November in areas that have trapped

or retained part of the monsoon rains, and it is harvested in January or February. The dry-

season crop seldom exceeds 15 percent of the total annual production.

In addition to these two regular crops, peasants plantfloating ricein April and in May in the

areas around theTonle Sap(Great Lake), whichfloodsand expands its banks in September

or early October. Before the flooding occurs, the seed is spread on the ground without any

preparation of the soil, and the floating rice is harvested nine months later, when the stems

have grown to three or four meters in response to the peak of the flood (the floating rice has

the property of adjusting its rate of growth to the rise of the flood waters so that its grain

heads remain above water). It has a low yield, probably less than half that of most other rice

types, but it can be grown inexpensively on land for which there is no other use.

The per-hectare rice yield in Cambodia is among the lowest in Asia. The average yield for the

wet crop is about 0.95 ton of unmilled rice per hectare. The dry-season crop yield istraditionally higher1.8 tons of unmilled rice per hectare. New rice varieties (IR36 and IR42)

have much higher yieldsbetween five and six tons of unmilled rice per hectare under good

conditions. Unlike local strains, however, these varieties require a fair amount of urea and

phosphate fertilizer (25,000 tons for 5,000 tons of seed), which the government could not

afford to import in the late 1980s.

4). Other Crop

4.1) Introduction

The main secondary crops in the late 1980s weremaize, cassava, sweet potatoes,

groundnuts,soybeans, sesame seeds,dry beans,andrubber. According to Phnom Penh,

the country produced 92,000 tons of corn (maize), as well as 100,000 tons of cassava, about

34,000 tons of sweet potatoes, and 37,000 tons of dry beans in 1986. In 1987 local officials

urged residents of the different agricultural regions of the country to step up the cultivation of

subsidiary food crops, particularly of starchy crops, to make up for the rice deficit caused by

a severedrought.

The principal commercial crop is rubber. In the 1980s it was an important primary

commodity, second only to rice, and one of the country's few sources of foreign exchange.

Rubber plantations were damaged extensively during the war (as much as 20,000 hectareswas destroyed), and recovery was very slow. In 1986 rubber production totalled about 24,500

tons (from an area of 36,000 hectares, mostly in Kampong Cham Province), far below the

1969 pre-war output of 50,000 tons (produced from an area of 50,000 hectares).

The government began exporting rubber and rubber products in 1985. A major customer was

the Soviet Union, which imported slightly more than 10,000 tons of Cambodian natural

rubber annually in 1985 and in 1986. In the late 1980s, Vietnam helped Cambodia restore

rubber-processing plants. The First Plan made rubber the second economic priority, with

production targeted at 50,000 tonsfrom an expanded cultivated area of 50,000 hectares

by 1990.

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Other commercial crops includedsugarcane, cotton, and tobacco. Among these secondary

crops, the First Plan emphasized the production ofjute, which was to reach the target of

15,000 tons in 1990.

4.2) Livestock

Animal husbandryhas been an essential part of Cambodian economic life, but apart that farmers have carried on mostly as a sideline. Traditionally, draft animals--water

buffaloandoxen-- have played a crucial role in the preparation of rice fields for cultivation.

In 1979 the decreasing number of draft animals hampered agricultural expansion. In 1967

there were 1.2 million head of draft animals; in 1979 there were only 768,000.

In 1987 Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Armed Forces, the Vietnamese army newspaper)

reported a considerable growth in the raising of draft animals in Cambodia. Between 1979

and 1987, the number ofcattleand water buffalo tripled, raising the total to 2.2 million head

in 1987. In the same year, there were 1.3 million hogs and 10 million domesticfowl.

4.3) Fisheries

Cambodia's preferred source ofprotein isfreshwater fish, caught mainly from the

Tonle Sap, theMekong, and theBasakrivers. Cambodians eat it fresh, salted, smoked, or

made into fish sauce and paste. A fishing program, developed with Western assistance, was

very successful in that it more than quadrupled the output of inland freshwater fish in three

years, from 15,000 tons in 1979 to 68,700 tons in 1982, a peak year. After levelling off,

output declined somewhat, dipping to 62,000 tons in 1986. The 1986 total was less than half

the pre-war figure of some 125,000 tons a year. Saltwater fishing was less developed, and the

output was insignificantless than 10 percent of the total catch. According to the First Plan,

fisheries were projected to increase their annual output to 130,000 metric tons by 1990.

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Part VI : Picture related to Agriculture

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Reference

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Agriculture_in_Cambodia2) http://www.investincambodia.com/agriculture.htm3) http://www.answers.com/topic/agricultural-system#ixzz1R8DorZay