In Cambodia, the palm tree, which is called “Tnoat” in Khmer, is a source of income in different seasons of the year. There are about 3 million palm trees and about 20,000 community families relying on the benefits of palm trees. Its palm juice is collected from January to April. In general, 400 to 600 liters of palm sap can be collected and processed from 60 to 90 kilograms per tree per season. Besides from its palm juice, it provides good materials for house construction such as leaves, leaf branches, trunk…
Cambodia’s exports of milled rice have grown significantly over the last decade: from 10,000 tons in 2009 to more than 626,225 tons in 2018. Indeed, Cambodian milling industry is gaining trust and Cambodian rice has yet a high-quality potential. Among the faster growing Cambodian export millers are those offering traceable and/or certified rice to their customers and delivering a consistent quality product, leading to increasing repeated orders and growing the reputation of Cambodian rice in the world market.
With the common objectives of improving livelihoods of rural farmers and contributing to poverty reduction in line with the Cambodian government policies, AVSF Cambodia has been collaborating with ETHIQUABLE since 2017 in purchasing organic and fair-trade powdered palm sugar and rice, respectively from the producer groups of KAMPATRACO and PMUAC. In the framework of the “Project to Accompany and Support the Organic and Fair-Trade Rice Producers of PMUAC in Preah Vihear Province, and Organic and Fair-Trade Palm Sugar Producers of KAMPATRACO in Kampong Speu Province”, KAMPATRACO -with the assistance of AVSF- supplied ETHIQUABLE with 2.2 MT in 2017 and 11.150 MT in 2018 of organic and fair-trade powdered sugar. With regards to rice export, AVSF facilitated and supported the signing of the first three parties’ contract (ETHIQUABLE – PMUAC – AMRU Rice). Consequently, in 2017, the rice producers of PMUAC delivered 300 MT of rice paddy (approximately 90.50 MT of organic and fair-trade milled rice) to ETHIQUABLE.
In the framework of this project, AVSF has provided both capacity building and technical support to the committee members of KAMPATRACO, the leaders and staff of PMUAC and producer members in terms of institutional development, internal control system management, traceability, knowledge of organic and fair-trade standards, certification, technical training on production techniques, packaging, storage, transporting process, to make sure and secure the quantity and quality of the product supplied to ETHIQUABLE or other buyers. Moreover, their institutional development has built an effective human resources management, an annual action and budget plan, an efficient reporting system as well as a business development and marketing support capacities. Thanks to AVSF support, 15 MT of organic and fair-trade powdered sugar are expected to be supplied by KAMPATRACO to ETHIQUABLE in 2019. In parallel, the second contract has been signed by three parties (ETHIQUABLE-PMUAC-AMRU Rice) with a total volume of 408.7 MT of rice paddy (approximately 133.5 MT of organic and fair-trade milled rice) in 2018.
Based on these successful cases in supporting palm sugar producers of KAMPATRACO and rice producers of PMUAC in supplying their products to ETHIQUABLE, AVSF is committed in continuing and assist further the functioning of KAMPATRACO and PMUAC in producing assured quality palm sugar and rice to be supplied to ETHIQUABLE and other potential buyers in the long run.
