Export Vs Sovereignty
Rice is the main stable food for every Cambodian people. As a country where over eighty percent of the population largely depends on agriculture, Cambodia today arrives at a stage where there are growing concerns regarding the government policies toward agriculture sector in its development agenda. There is no question around the crucial role agriculture sector plays in development. The Royal Government of Cambodia puts agriculture as one of the four main priority sectors in the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) and we can find in every other policy documents that emphasize on the important of this sector. The remaining question probably lies in what are the strategies that the government and relevant stakeholders at both local and international level have to address the key immediate and long term issues in agriculture sector.
The global food crisis in 2008 and the global financial crisis that followed create an adverse impact on specific segment of the population in both developed and developing countries due to soaring price of basic commodity. Poor people were hard-hit by this phenomenon and of course women and children are ones who received the negatively impacts the most by this. In Cambodia, the most recent discussions following the major phenomenon have been emphasized on the rice production capacity of farmers, rules and regulations governing the rice import and export policy. The tendency has been on producing for sell/export and that will benefit to many people including the farmers who are rice producer.
In a recent study conducted by the Cambodia Economic Association (CEA) on Financing Aspect in Agriculture Sector found that the budget allocation for agriculture sector and its inter-twined sector of Water resource management has been low. MAFF receives on average of 4% of the national budget each year and similarly shared the budget for Ministry of Water Management and Meteorology. Not only that it is low but the budget has not been fully spent since 2006 till 2009. This arises some of the core question as to why this priority sector could not be absorbed the entire budget annually while the district level administration body of MAFF all over Cambodia does not have an adequate annual budget package to implement their own planned activities.
What interesting is that in one of the discussion workshops around agriculture financing, the policy markers from key institution in Cambodia presents the strategic plan of the government in meeting the target of producing approximately 5 million tones of rice for export each year starting from 2015. A growing concern from the civil society and representatives from some development partners have been on the food security of the large poor and very poor population in Cambodia. Besides holding a small size of arable land, small holder farmers in Cambodia are facing with problems of land quality, access to irrigation system and the high cost of agriculture inputs for their rice production. While the rice export-led policy does emphasize on the crucial needs to engage in the free market and be a player of rice export country, like our neighbouring countries: Vietnam and Thailand, the immediate needs of small holder farmers have been overlooked.
The whole discussion seems not touch upon sustainable agriculture aspect. In contrast, government and development partners seem agree with increasing productivity through increasing chemical fertilizer and changing new seeds to adopt with climate change. It is very dangerous for small holder farmers as they are likely to lost their fertile ground and local seeds.
It is predictable that being able to produce and export rice on the global market will bring comparative advantage to Cambodian rice and benefit to the country, however, the question is who are the population that will benefit from this? Will the small holder farmer that own a hectare of farm land benefit from the rice export policy or will this farmer family struggle to produce enough to feed every members of the family.
While export policy is necessary contribution in economic development of Cambodia we can not ignore the food sovereignty of the nation. There are just too many examples from countries in Asia such as The Philippines and in Latin America that show the inability of the country in producing to feed its population when they start to adopt the export let growth policy. Where agriculture products such as rice are targeted for export, farmers are not able to balance between producing for their own consumption and selling to traders.
It is therefore crucial for Cambodian government and its development partners to be greatly cautious about what policy to introduce to Cambodia to address sustainable development in agriculture. Trade has also been done for centuries in the country but it is done when the population has enough to feed themselves and it is understandable that the surplus is used for trading in exchange for either cash or other needed communities. There are danger when we are prioritizing the production for export when vast number of population still live under poverty , still face food insecurity, and does not hold arable land to use to feed themselves.
The global food crisis in 2008 and the global financial crisis that followed create an adverse impact on specific segment of the population in both developed and developing countries due to soaring price of basic commodity. Poor people were hard-hit by this phenomenon and of course women and children are ones who received the negatively impacts the most by this. In Cambodia, the most recent discussions following the major phenomenon have been emphasized on the rice production capacity of farmers, rules and regulations governing the rice import and export policy. The tendency has been on producing for sell/export and that will benefit to many people including the farmers who are rice producer.
In a recent study conducted by the Cambodia Economic Association (CEA) on Financing Aspect in Agriculture Sector found that the budget allocation for agriculture sector and its inter-twined sector of Water resource management has been low. MAFF receives on average of 4% of the national budget each year and similarly shared the budget for Ministry of Water Management and Meteorology. Not only that it is low but the budget has not been fully spent since 2006 till 2009. This arises some of the core question as to why this priority sector could not be absorbed the entire budget annually while the district level administration body of MAFF all over Cambodia does not have an adequate annual budget package to implement their own planned activities.
What interesting is that in one of the discussion workshops around agriculture financing, the policy markers from key institution in Cambodia presents the strategic plan of the government in meeting the target of producing approximately 5 million tones of rice for export each year starting from 2015. A growing concern from the civil society and representatives from some development partners have been on the food security of the large poor and very poor population in Cambodia. Besides holding a small size of arable land, small holder farmers in Cambodia are facing with problems of land quality, access to irrigation system and the high cost of agriculture inputs for their rice production. While the rice export-led policy does emphasize on the crucial needs to engage in the free market and be a player of rice export country, like our neighbouring countries: Vietnam and Thailand, the immediate needs of small holder farmers have been overlooked.
The whole discussion seems not touch upon sustainable agriculture aspect. In contrast, government and development partners seem agree with increasing productivity through increasing chemical fertilizer and changing new seeds to adopt with climate change. It is very dangerous for small holder farmers as they are likely to lost their fertile ground and local seeds.
It is predictable that being able to produce and export rice on the global market will bring comparative advantage to Cambodian rice and benefit to the country, however, the question is who are the population that will benefit from this? Will the small holder farmer that own a hectare of farm land benefit from the rice export policy or will this farmer family struggle to produce enough to feed every members of the family.
While export policy is necessary contribution in economic development of Cambodia we can not ignore the food sovereignty of the nation. There are just too many examples from countries in Asia such as The Philippines and in Latin America that show the inability of the country in producing to feed its population when they start to adopt the export let growth policy. Where agriculture products such as rice are targeted for export, farmers are not able to balance between producing for their own consumption and selling to traders.
It is therefore crucial for Cambodian government and its development partners to be greatly cautious about what policy to introduce to Cambodia to address sustainable development in agriculture. Trade has also been done for centuries in the country but it is done when the population has enough to feed themselves and it is understandable that the surplus is used for trading in exchange for either cash or other needed communities. There are danger when we are prioritizing the production for export when vast number of population still live under poverty , still face food insecurity, and does not hold arable land to use to feed themselves.
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