Some 50 agricultural cooperatives have signed contract farming with four agricultural firms and rice millers, supplying paddy organic rice and organic cassava.
The signing ceremony was held Tuesday led by Veng Sakhon, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries with the participation of representatives of agricultural cooperatives, rice millers, and Cambodian Rice Federation, Cambodia-Australia Agriculture Value Chain Programme (CAVAC).
Contract farming is an agreement between farmers and processing and/or marketing firms for the production and supply of agricultural products under forward agreement, frequently at predetermined prices.
Under the MoU, the agricultural cooperatives, from six provinces including Takeo, Kampong Speu, Kampot, Kampong Chhnang, Mondulkiri and Preah Vihear, supply 24,662 tonnes of organic paddy rice and 30,206 tonnes of organic cassava to the four agricultural firms and rice millers, which are Cambodian Agriculture Cooperative Corporation, Armu Rice (Cambodia), Signatures of Asia, and Bayon Heritage.
Speaking at the function, Mr Veng Sakhon highly valued the work to make the contract farming signed which will contribute to strengthen the production capacity and keeping markets for farmers.
The Minister said that at the time when Cambodia is facing the COVID-19 crisis, the Royal Government of Cambodia is paying attention to solving the problems of farmers, agricultural cooperatives, and small and medium enterprises so that they can continue production activities by strengthening the investment environment to create jobs, absorb local labour, provide income and use agricultural raw materials to the fullest extent possible.
He also laid stress on the ministry’s efforts to continue encouraging all sub-sectors to follow the “public-private-development partners and communities” approach to expand the scope to other communities in contributing to the development of agriculture in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and globalisation.
As of September 2020, 701 contract farming on rice, organic rice, organic cassava, pepper, palm sugar, vegetable, cashew nut, corn, bean, chicken, pig and so on have been signed. Chea Vannak – AKP
This article was first published in Khmer Times. All contents and images are copyright to their respective owners and sources.
