Cambodia working hard to increase rice exports
By Jon Fernquest
Cambodia
aims to join the
ranks of the top world rice exporters.The world's top rice exporters just happen to be Cambodia's neighbors. In 2007:
9.5
million tonnes - Thailand
4.5 million tonnes - Vietnam
450,000 tonnes - Cambodia
4.5 million tonnes - Vietnam
450,000 tonnes - Cambodia
If Cambodia rice exports via Thailand are included Cambodia's rice exports supposedly increase to 600,000 to 800,000 tonnes a year.
Cambodia's goal is a very ambitious, perhaps too ambitious, target of eight million to 15 million tonnes of rice exported by 2015, just six years.
Is this goal reasonable?
Better irrigation systems, logistics systems, and storage systems in Cambodia will all be necessary to to reach these ambitious production targets. Japan and Korea are assisting Cambodia with irrigation investment. Cambodia currently invests about $49 million per year. Middle Eastern countries have also made big investments. The small states of Kuwait and Qatar invest because they are interested in securing future food supplies.
To achieve their ambitious goals Cambodian rice farmers need to: 1. increase rice yields per hectare on existing land under cultivation, and also 2, increase the amount of land under cultivation.
Cambodia has to catch up with the much higher yields of its Asian neighbors:
6-8
tonnes per hectare - China
3.5 tonnes per hectare - Thailand
2.6 tonnes per hectare - Cambodia
2.5 tonnes per hectare - India
3.5 tonnes per hectare - Thailand
2.6 tonnes per hectare - Cambodia
2.5 tonnes per hectare - India
Investment in irrigation is perhaps the biggest measure needed to increase yields. Currently, 1.6 million hectares of 2.6 million under cultivation are irrigated. This lack of water on a large percentage of the land limits the number of rice harvests possible during the year. In Cambodia many farmers only have a single crop. In both Thailand and Vietnam both have much better irrigation which can support as many as three crops per year.
New rice growing techniques are also important, making a doubling of yields possible. For an innovative rice farmer named Sok Sarin in southern Cambodia "better irrigation, training in how to select seeds and cheap fertiliser made from wild plants and animal or bat droppings have more than doubled the yield from his rice fields to 3.4 tonnes per hectare from 1.5 tonnes."
Cambodia has an estimated six million hectares in potential farmland. There are still areas with large amounts of unworked land in the northeast of the country and the former battlefields of the northwest which are still mined. Irrigation would make more of Cambodia's huge freshwater inland lake, the Tonle Sap, able to be cultivated. There are up to 800,000 hectares of potential farm land. Right now water levels cannot be controlled: "In the rainy season, there's too much, which damages rice plants, in the dry season too little."
(Source: Bangkok Post, business, Ek Madra, Reuters, 08-11-08)
Vocabulary:
join the ranks of - join the group of top performers เข้าร่วมในการจัดอันดับที่ดีที่สุด
ambitious - goals are very high and difficult to achieve (perhaps even too high to be achieved) ทะเยอทยาน
irrigation - artificial application of water to the soil usually for assisting in growing crops, using canals to take water from one place such as a river to fields far away from the river (See Wikipedia) การชลประทาน
logistics - moving goods from place to place (transportation), coordinating movements, and storing goods in warehouses until needed or sold (See Wikipedia) การขนส่งสินค้า
secure - get, make sure the country has ให้ได้มา
securing future food supplies - make sure the country has enough food to eat สำรองอาหารให้พอกับความต้องการ
yields - how much crop a farmer gets from farming one hectare of land ผลผลิต
under cultivation - growing crops on the land ที่กำลังให้ผลผลิต
a measure - an action taken to solve a problem มาตรการ
animal and bat droppings - the waste material from Animals and bats มูลสัตว์ มูลค้างคาว
potential X - could become X in the future อาจจะเป็น ..... ได้
freshwater - no salt like the sea น้ำจืด
