Agriculture Minister urges Swiss​ to strengthen capacity to increase agricultural production

H.E. Veng Sakhon had met with Mr. Markus Buerli, Director of the Swiss Cooperation Office and the Swiss Consulate in the Kingdom of Cambodia and his colleagues for a courtesy call and discussed ways to strengthen and expand cooperation between the two countries in the field of agriculture in Cambodia on September 3, 2020 at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

The Minister thanked the Government of Switzerland for its excellent cooperation with Cambodia in all fields; especially, the agricultural sector by the Swiss side has continued to implement the project to use satellite information system as a basis and rice crop insurance in Cambodia RIICE since 2012.

H.E. added that with fruitful results, the Swiss side has continued to implement this project with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which has now reached the third phase 2019 ~ 2021 in order to control natural disasters that affect rice production and find out more information such as actual cultivated area, planting time, top of the growing season, mid-season yield forecast, harvest yield estimates, and disaster loss assessments.

The Minister also stated that all these technologies and information are very important for professional officers to provide data and information to farmers and in line with the Ministry of Agriculture Strategic Development Plan to promote the implementation of agricultural modernization, agricultural mechanization, climate change resilient farming, mapping of cropland, especially the promotion of agricultural production chains and value added.

Therefore, the Minister requested the Swiss party to continue to cooperate with the Ministry on the above work and examine the possibility of strengthening the capacity of officials and farmers to build support infrastructure such as irrigation systems to respond to water shortages caused by climate change and promote education, research and produce foundation seeds to jointly develop this sector to grow to another level.

Mr. Markus Buerli expressed his great pleasure and congratulations to the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Ministry for continuing to develop the agricultural sector effectively by boosting local production, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

He also agreed with the Minister's concerns regarding water shortages and low water levels in the Mekong River, which could affect crop production this year. Therefore, the Swiss side is in discussions with a development partner operating in Cambodia as well to develop a short-term support project focused on building support infrastructure and irrigation systems for farmers.

On the other hand, considering that the cooperation between the two sides in implementing the RIICE project has achieved good results, the Swiss side will continue to cooperate with the Ministry which plans to sign an agreement on the implementation of another project, a project to boost the horticultural production chain, called the Cambodia CHAIN Phase 3 Fruit and Vegetable Project, from January 2021 to December 2022.

During the meeting, the two sides also discussed a number of topics, such as the progress of amendments to the Fisheries Law and the Forestry Law.(This news came from MAFF)