Key Programs of SOFDEC
- 1. Community Empowerment Project
- 2. Improvement and Strengthening of Rice and Vegetable Productions
- 3. Improvement of Animal and Poultry Production
- 4. Market Project of Agricultural and Handicraft Products
1. Community Empowerment Project
The population census in 2008 indicated that around 35% of Cambodians are poor and most of them live in rural areas. Developing such communities, it requires highly support, encouragement and ownership enhancement. In addition, all development projects need to have participation by the community. SOFDEC has established community ownership enhancement project with the attempt to build the capacity of communities to be able to lead and manage the community development projects by their own at presence and in the future. So far, SOFDEC has engaged with the following important activities:
- 1.1 Farmer association development,
- 1.2 Training and implementation of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA),
- 1.3 Facilitation of Village Development Plan (VDP),
- 1.4 Support annual assembly of CBO
- 1.5 Celebration of International Women Day
- 1.6 Microfinance (credit)
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2. Improvement and Strengthening of Rice and Vegetable Productions
Rice is the staple food for Cambodians. It is grown to around 2.6 million ha in Cambodia under different growing environments including upland, rainfed lowland, irrigated or dry season and deepwater. In SOFDEC target villages, rice is grown to 2,384 ha under rainfed environment (depending on rainfall as the main source of water or without irrigation system) and most of farmers prefer transplanting as method of crop establishment. Traditionally, they use 60-90 kg seed/ha by planting 4-5 seedling/hill (using 1-2 month old seedling) and utilizing impure varieties. They transplanted under narrow spacing of about 10 cm, whereas rice yield has been very low, ranging between less than 1 t/ha to around 2 t/ha. Furthermore, farmers have been using various kinds of chemicals (in rice production), which are believed to harm human health and the environment. Such chemical application occurred as the limitations of compost and botanical pesticide as well as lack of knowledge on integrated farming systems (most farmers perform monoculture of rice crop).
On the other hand, vegetables are very useful for health and important source of income for farmers and other stakeholders. The most popular grown vegetables in SOFDEC target villages (Kampong Chhnang province) are cucumber, crucifer spp., pumpkin, watermelon, sweet potato and string bean. In vegetable production, farmers face several important problems: lack of knowledge on planting method, crop protection, variety selection and proper harvesting techniques as well as lack of water for irrigation.
In addressing the above mentioned issues, SOFDEC has performed the following projects.
- 2.1 System of rice intensification (SRI)
- 2.2 Farmer Participatory Seed Production (FARMSEED)
- 2.3 Rice Seed Bank
- 2.4 Integrated Rice Based Farming System (INTEREST)
- 2.5 Seasonal long training on vegetable production (SLT)
- 2.6 Support water well and ponds
- 2.7 Testing of arsenic in water wells
- 2.8 Forum on agricultural practice
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