9th NATIONAL FARMER FORUM

9th National Farmer Forum was organized on October 21, 2020 under the main theme: Smallholder Farmers during COVID-19. The forum was co-hosted by the NGO Forum on Cambodia and partners including Action Aid in Cambodia, AFD, BCV, CamboDHRRA, Caritas Cambodia, Caritas Switzerland, CDRI, CEDAC, DCA, Diakonia, DPA, FACE, FCFD, FNN, FWN, GADC, HEIFER, HEKS, LWD, Oxfam in Cambodia, Sre Khmer, UNDP – GEF SGP, World Renew, CPSA and World Vision Cambodia. There were 190 participants (73 women) who representative of relevant ministries, National Assembly, Private sector, Banking, Development Partners, Academia, CSO and famers includes representative of farmer women champion and member of agricultural cooperative (AC). The forum aimed to:

1. Promote quality and safety of agricultural products for smallholder farmers access to market;

2. Enforce policy implementation, especially support smallholder farmers in response to COVID-19 and

3. Strengthen cooperation and partnership with relevant stakeholders to promote investment and agri-business during and post COVID-19. The forum was divided into three parallel sessions to provide spaces for dialogue on specific topics: (i) quality and safety of agricultural products, (ii) policy enabling and (iii) Trend of investment and agri-business during and post COVID-19.

The forum was divided into three parallel sessions to provide spaces for dialogue on specific topics: (i) quality and safety of agricultural products, (ii) policy enabling and (iii) Trend of investment and agri-business during and post COVID-19.

The forum appreciates what have been done so far by the government and relevant stakeholders to support agriculture sector, especially during COVID-19 pandemics, Cambodia and other countries in the world are affected by global economic crisis, in response, the government has considered to take priority action on agriculture sector. For instance, the government decided to allocate 50 million US dollars through the Agriculture and Rural Development Bank to provide a credit / loan to famers and Agri-investors with low interest rate by 5 % per year. In order to promote global market for agriculture, the government is seeking more opportunities to strengthen partnership and cooperation with ASEAN countries and other such as Japan, India and China. The forum also found many significant results both technical and financial supports by responsible ministries to promote sustainable agriculture through implementing its national polices, guidelines and action plan.

However, some key challenges or concerns were found such as farmers access to water, capital and market, especially capacity of farmers to invest and benefits from agriculture value chain. Climate change is the biggest threaten to agriculture sector including drought and flood.

In summary, the forum draws some suggestions and recommendations as below:

1. Relevant ministries and partners should widely disseminate information on standard and safety of agricultural products;

2. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) should increase budget allocation to sub-national level through Provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (PDAFF) to support smallholder farmers and agriculture cooperative (AC);

3. Strengthen capacity and skill on agriculture processing, especially support and provide some materials to smallholder farmers and AC;

4. The Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) should not divide different costs by time for electricity charging;

5. Increase agriculture value chain, especially agriculture processing and packaging;

6. Producer group should highly consider to increase safe agriculture productivity;

7. Strengthen monitoring system to control and manage pesticide in agriculture sector;

8. Check and control quality and safety of agriculture products including fish, meat and vegetable;

9. Banking sector including micro-finance agencies should delay loan return payment during COVID-19 and natural disasters;

10. Banking should consider to support young entrepreneurship in agriculture sector, especially to provide loan based on their investment plan as supporting documents without provided collateral property; and

11. Banking sector should increase special capital for farmers to cope with COVID-19 and natural disasters.

Please see the minute and statement for detail information. See link below for media tracking: 1- Smallholders told to diversify crops Source: Khmer Times, 22 Oct 2020 https://bit.ly/3686l4x 2- Farmers encouraged to branch out, diversify crops Source: Phnom Penh Post, 21 October 2020 https://bit.ly/32iTVWk 3-RFI https://bit.ly/36oW2JJ