Rural Assistance Program Prey Veng (RAP), Cambodia

A sustained effort....how our Rural Assistance Program has grown over the years.

Late in 1998 we formed a partnership with the then newly established Cambodian NGO, CEDAC, with the aim of improving the lives of peasant farmers and restoring the ecological balance in a targeted area of the countryside through extensive planting of trees. Investigation of the wide variety of problems and challenges facing the farmers in our target area led us, step by step, to broaden our program to include four key initiatives.

• Chemical Free Farming

In a place where most adults are illiterate, the dangers posed by the potential misuse of chemical pesticides and fertilizers present a unique set of problems. Our program teaches farmers to employ organic farming techniques to increase crop yields, reduce costs and rid their environment of the harmful residues from excessive use of agricultural chemicals. 

• Provide seeds, seedlings and small farm animals to small farmers to get them started

We supply some of our farmers with locally appropriate vegetable seeds, fruit tree seedlings, small livestock (typically ducklings or a piglet) or fish fingerlings to stock their hand dug ponds. We do this to help them diversify their farming output from what had previously been, for most of them, a reliance on just a one annual crop of rainy season rice. This component of our program is particularily important for the many farmers whose rice fields are too small to produce enough to feed their families.

• Drilling water wells to provide reliable sources of drinking water and water for small gardening plots

Over the past 16 years we have drilled and installed approximately  500 water wells to ensure our farmers and their families access to a reliable supply of clean, safe water, especially during the long annual dry season. Those wells allow our farmers to continue working productively on their land even during the dry season whereas in the past, driven by a lack of water, they had typically abandoned their farms during the dry season to seek work in the cities.

• AIDS Patient Support

Our program encourages AIDS afflicted farmers to meet in mutual support groups and provide AIDS patient support providing money for  AIDS afflicted farmers for transportation ( about 45 minutes drive)  for farmers to visit medical resources.

• Establish tree nursuries to encourage reforestation to restore soil fertility

We supply materials, seeds and instruction to help some of our best farmers establish small tree seedling nurseries. Those farmers then share the seedlings with their neighbors and everyone is strongly encouraged to plant trees around their houses and along their paddy dikes.

Our generous donors have helped us to transform lives and rebuild communities to a degree that we never imagined when our program first started.

Links:

• See more about our Rural Assistance Program

Meet One of Our Farmers !

Mr. T, age 46 , is one of our farmer leaders and lives in Tbleng Village, Prey Chhor commune , Kampong Trabek Dristrict , Prey Veng province. He is married and has 4 children, three of whom still live at home.

Mr. T owns 3.5 acres of land, 2.5 are used for rice production and the remaining is used as a homestead.   Mr. T joined our program in April 2014 and he has been trained and coached in technical innovation in organic agriculture by MOAD( our local partner, Mohaleap Organization for Agricultural Development ).

As a model farmer, he has received some incentives from the project such as fish fingerling, vegetable sed, breeding chickens, tree nursery canal rehabilitation and organic fertilizer. After his training , coaching and exchange visit, he has put many of these technical and ecological innovations to use as follows;

1. raised 400 walking catfish
2. created a tre nursery consisting of 350 seedling trees
3. raised 15 chickens and 50 ducks
4. made a movable chicken house to enable chicks to get Vitamin D from sunlight
5. raised 3 cows and one sow( pig ) who is now pregnant
6. makes master feed for animals from jack fruit and water convolvulus plants
7. created a composting pile that is well prepared and compost is stored for use on home garden
8. converted the use of dry paddy rice into germinated paddy rice for chicken feed
9. using organic fertilizer on one acre of rice field , has harvested 1000 kg ( 2200 pounds) of fragrant rice. He was able to sell neighbors about 300 kg at a price of $0.60 per kg . The use of fragrant rice allows for a higher selling price vs regular rice $0.60 vs $0.36 per kg. The remaining 700 kg was processed into Ambok, a kind of mash that is to be sold at the local market.
10. Is growing three kinds of vegetables as cash crop: winter melon, cucumber and sponge gourd.

Since participating with MOAD, Mr. T has successfully practiced vegetable and rice production and with the additional benefit that he has become a valued local resource: neighbors and one local organization have come to learn from him on his farm.

Mr. T's total income from Agriculture in the past year is $ 2,100:

1. Chickens - $ 180
2. Pig-$287
3. Duck - $50
4. Vegetable -$5
5. Paddy rice- $1480

The use of technical innovation in ecological agriculture brought Mr. T more benefits than simple income. These methods also helped to conserve and restore the environment and enhanced his families health. Consequently , he is very committed to transforming his farm into an organic farm from 2015 onward.

This program is a great example of how we are able to teach farmers to help themselves. Others, seeing their success , learn and begin to utilize better farming practices with combined effects of increasing income and protecting the environment.

 Barbara & Mark Rosasco