Farmers’ field day in Svay Rieng 1

Report: Farmers’ Field Day in Basak Commune,

Date of report: 16 September 2014

By: Yim Soksophors,

1. Background

Cambodia is the most vulnerable country to climate change impact due to its low adaptive capacity. Svay

Rieng is one among the vulnerable provinces to drought and flooding. Svay Rieng is more often confronting

to the drought which resulted in low agricultural production or even production loss in some cases. Farmers’

livelihood has negative affected when income from agriculture is not sufficiently produced to support their

families’ livelihood. This results in high migration rate of the rural poor to look for jobs in Phnom Penh and

other areas inside and outside the country.

SNV Cambodia has been implementing a Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) project in 9 villages across 6

communes in Svay Chrum district of Svay Rieng province. The project strives to build resilience of vegetable

farmers to cope with climate variation and change using climate smart agriculture (CSA) approaches. The

project has improved understanding of the farmers and local authorities on climate change concept, climate

change impact, and adaptation and mitigation measures and enable them to gain understanding and

technical skills in climate smart agriculture approaches. The climate smart agriculture activities are expected

to be integrated into Commune Investment Programme (CIP) of the commune councils as a mean for

replication and dissemination of the successful practices in the targeted communities.

In cooperation with Cambodian Farmer Association of Agriculture Producers (CFAP), a farmer’s field day was

organised on Saturday, September 06, 2014 at Basak village, Basak commune of Svay Chrum district, in

Svay Rieng province.

2. Objective

The objective of the farmer’s field day is to disseminate good climate smart agricultural practices to farmers,

village chiefs, commune councillors, and local stakeholders in the project’s areas. It is to note that the

farmers’ field day is an effective dissemination method because it provides opportunity for the participants

to directly visit and learn from experienced farmers.

3. Participants

Thirty five participants actively participated in the farmer’s field day. Those participants consisted of

farmers, women members of vegetable producer group, village chiefs, commune councillors, commune chief

and representatives from CFAP.

4. Venue

The farmer’s field day was organized at Kenn Snor’s vegetable garden in Basak village, Basak commune of

Svay Chrum district, in Svay Rieng province.

Farmers’ field day in Svay Rieng 2

5. Major Activities Carried Out During the Farmer’s Field Day

Soksophors YIM, climate smart agriculture advisor, firstly took the participants’ attention to the CSA project

by introducing project background, objectives and key activities to be carried out by the project. He said

that “the project strives to improve adaptive capacity of farmers and local authorities in dealing with climate

change impact such as prolonged drought, erratic rainfall, flooding, pest outbreak, etc. Support and

cooperation from local authorities is strongly needed to ensure the project’s success and long-term

sustainability”.

Ken Snor presented her historical background in cooperation with the CSA project. Then she detailed her

vegetable production, presented income and expense from vegetable growing. She planted various kinds of

vegetables such as lettuce, bitter gourd, pumpkin, cassava, brassica, etc. She is happy with the result as

she spent only 80,000 riels (approx. 20USD) for production cost but received more than 600,000 riels as

return of income. This not included family’s self-consumption.

A field visit to her vegetable garden was carried out and then a reflection meeting among the participants

were carried out. Generally, the participants were interested to know vegetable growing practices especially

selection of tolerant crop varieties to drought, pest control, water use efficiency, income and expense and

other difficulties / constraints in vegetable production.

6. Conclusion

The participants are happy to learn the climate smart agricultural practices. Furthermore, they highly

appreciate the commitment and effort of Kenn Snor as a woman farmer in making a resilient vegetable

garden for family’s consumption and income. The participants promised to improve their agricultural

practices after coming back from the farmer’s field day. Additionally, the commune chief encouraged the

participants to improve their vegetable production, at least to produce safe produce for family consumption

and sell if surplus.

7. Lessons-learned

Participation from local authorities (village chief, commune councillors, and commune chief) is

important as they can help to disseminate successful stories to other farmers in their respective

community. In addition, they are encouraged to integrate the climate smart agriculture practices

into Commune Investment Programme (CIP). This will lead to replication and upscaling of the

innovation introduced by the project and ensure long-term sustainability.

Non-participating farmers should be invited to join the farmer’s field day as it is a good chance to

attract their attention to the Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA).

Women should be encouraged to participate in the farmer’s field day. Majority of women are

involved in home gardening / vegetable growing, so it is really helpful for them to gain new ideas &

appropriate techniques for improving their farming practices and income generation capacity.

Rovai hand pump is a water supply tool that helps women farmers to reduce workload in carrying

out water from pond to vegetable garden. They can save time and labour for doing other productive

activities.

Loud speaker should be used during the presentation of the farmer’s success stories. Then, other

farmers / villagers can hear from distance. This will help in disseminating the farmer’s message

widely in the village / community.

Farmers’ field day in Svay Rieng 3

Annex: Photos of the farmer’s field day

Photo 1: Kenn Snor explaining her pest control methods – normally mechanism pest control is used.

Photo 2: Commune councillor (right) discussing how to make vegetable frame from bamboo and plastic rope with community members.

Photo 3: Participants discussing how to use of Rovai

pump for watering their crops.

Photo 4: Participants sharing their knowledge

of vegetable growing and water use.

Photo 5: A woman participant giving impression on the visit and she also encouraged local authorities to disseminate the successful experience to other farmers.

Photo 6: Commune chief giving closing remark of the farmer’s field day. She encouraged other farmers who have not applied vegetable growing to learn and apply good climate smart agriculture practices.