A week after Thailand blocked the exports of Cambodian longan in Battambang due to Covid-19 fears, a trader says hundreds of tons of the local fruit are at risk of spoiling.
Hammered by years of debt, drought and desperation, Cambodia’s smallholder farmers have long supported themselves by sending family to work in Phnom Penh factories. But the pandemic has upended the arrangement, forcing unemployed workers back to failing farms.
Farmers in Kandal province say they each have thousands of dollars worth of vegetables spoiling in their fields because they can’t find buyers.
While recent floodwaters are receding, farmers who spoke with VOD say they are weighed down by heavy debt and years of failed crops, and see fear and hopelessness ahead of them.
Cambodia and China on Monday signed a long-awaited free trade deal, as industry observers said it could be a boon for agricultural investment and seen as a major policy achievement, while others spoke of the need for wider reforms to make Cambodian exports competitive.
Banana workers in Stung Treng said people were getting sick in droves at the plantation, blaming chemicals sprayed by drones flying overhead, as well as cramped living quarters and a lack of clean water.
Migrant workers in Battambang said they had no capital or land to start a farm and were heavily indebted. And with a glut of workers returning to the countryside, farm labor jobs were scarce and barely paid enough to live, they said.
Twenty villagers engaged in a dispute with a rubber plantation over more than 400 hectares of land in Tbong Khmum province were released from custody on Tuesday after they were arrested the day before for allegedly damaging the company’s land-clearing machinery, an official said.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has touted Cambodia’s “strong” agricultural sector as a solution to economic pressures during the global pandemic, though some observers doubt agriculture could make up for garment sector losses due to Covid-19 and the pending withdrawal of some E.U. trade perks.
The Agriculture Ministry has instructed local farmers and producers to rethink their mango supply chains, as coronavirus-related economic disruptions have sent the price of the fruit plummeting during peak season.
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