Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

SiemRiep provincial department of agriculture has been doing dry season field by practicing on intensification through natural principle over 100 ha which attracted by farmer in Mkak commune chikraeng district.

Agricultural officer spoke that farmers did not have habit to farm the dry season field at past time, and it was kept free after rainy reason. Through Minister’s encouragement, Agricultural department and office cooperate to make a new change by direct practice with farmers.

Crocodile skins will not be exported from Cambodia in 2010 despite a 13-year effort to encourage commercial farming, a representative from the Fisheries Administration (FiA) has said.

Nao Thuok, Directore General of FiA, announced on Sunday that Cambodia still cannot export crocodile skins into international markets because the country’s farms have not been able to fulfill industry standards.

“We are looking for companies which are capable of investing in large-scale [operations] in order to create opportunities to export crocodile skin into international markets,” he said.

Construction has begun on Cambodia’s first marine breeding centre, which is set to provide up to half a million young fish to the Kingdom’s farmers each year.

Ground breaking began at the US$6.6 million (624 million yen) Marine Aquaculture Development Centre in Muoy district, Preah Sihanouk province, on Monday.
It is hoped the centre, which is financed by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), will double fish production in the province and help alleviate poverty in the area.

When it is complete, the complex is set to include a fish hatchery, maturation building and a research facility to help breed hundreds of thousands of young shrimp, sea bass and grouper.

“We will complete the whole project in early 2012,” said Seng Solady, JICA programme officer, on Monday.

The U.N food agency, known as Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that food insecurity has increased in the Asia-Pacific region which is home to more than 60 percent of the world's over 1 billion hungry people.

"Nearly 18 percent of the region's population was undernourished in 2009, compared to 16 percent in 2006 -- the first time since the Green Revolution in the 1960s that the share of the hungry in the region has increased," it said in a statement released Monday at the first day of the five-day meeting held in Cambodia's northern town of Siem Reap.

Senior government statisticians from 17 Asia-Pacific countries and FAO experts are now gathering in Siem Reap at a regional forum to discuss ways to improve governments' access to reliable and up- to-date agricultural data to ensure effective agricultural and rural development policies and programs.

The Cambodian government is set to reduce exports of fishery products by 20 percent this year in order to cater for rising domestic demand, local media reported on Monday, citing industry officals.

Nao Thuk, director general of the Fishery Administration, said that this year Cambodia would export 24,000 tons of fishery products.

"We can catch a lot of fish, but our population has risen too. That was why we have to reduce exports of fishery products," Nao Thuk was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.

Representatives from the Fishery Administration declined to reveal the scale of domestic demand.

In March, the General Department of Fishery Administration reported that last year Cambodia exported 30,000 tons of fishery products, which included fish, lobster, sea crab and shrimp.

In 2008, only 5,000 tons were exported.