Irrigation advances fuel Cambodian rice dream

By Ek Madra

TRAMKOK, Cambodia (Reuters) - Sok Sarin flashes a toothless grin as he looks at his newly built house and remembers how the other farmers laughed when he pioneered new rice-growing techniques in his district in southern Cambodia.

Better irrigation, training in how to select seeds and cheap fertilizer made from wild plants and animal or bat droppings have more than doubled the yield from his rice fields to 3.4 tons per hectare from 1.5 tons.

"No one believed that this idea would work. Now they follow me and they have good harvests," said Sarin, 60.

Cambodia's economy was devastated by civil war from the 1970s to the late 1990s, including four years under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, whose dream of transforming the country into a great rice power ended in the nightmare of the "Killing Fields."

Now another agrarian revolution is under way as the government seeks to boost rice exports and cut poverty among its 14 million people, 85 percent of whom are farmers or members of farming families.

Thanks in large part to vastly improved irrigation, Sarin can get two crops a year from his fields, earning him an income of $1,500. Per capita income in Cambodia is around $500.

Sarin's neighbor, Long Yos, 50, said Cambodian farmers were also following methods honed in China, India and the Philippines to breed fish that eat the insects that destroy rice plants.

"The fish eat the insects; we eat the fish when they get bigger," said Yos.

OVER-AMBITIOUS

Better irrigation and the expansion of land use are crucial to government ambitions to produce 15 million tons of rice by 2015, more than double the 7 million forecast for 2008/09 and 6.76 million in 2007/08. The main harvest is in November.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Cambodia was the world's ninth-biggest rice exporter in 2007 with 450,000 tons. Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun says Cambodia could export 8 million tons by 2015.

Neighbors Thailand and Vietnam were in first and third places in the export table in 2007 with 9.5 million tons and 4.5 million tons respectively, according to the USDA.

One rice dealer with a trading house in Singapore estimated Cambodia exported 600,000 to 800,000 tons a year, directly or indirectly via Thailand, and could push that up to 1.5 million tons in one or two seasons if the government was focused.

"But 8 million tons is an entirely different ball game. Obviously, this has to come from increases in area and not just yield," he said.

Another Singapore trader said it would take a lot of money for Cambodia to push yields significantly higher.