For more than a year, Uch Chuon’s income has been falling, and he is growing worried.
The 65-year-old Takeo farmer has two main sources of revenue: the rice he grows, and the pigs he raises. Prices for both have plummeted.
Last year in Takeo province, unmilled rice was selling for 400 riel to 450 riel per kg; today the price is 300 riel per kg. Last year, a live pig went for about 4,000 riel per kg; today it sells for 2,400 riel per kg.
“If prices get cheaper, this will severely affect our standard of living,” Uch Chuon said. “We live on rice and pork, and if they get cheaper, we’ll have less money to support our families.”
Farmers in Takeo say the price of pigs is falling because of an influx of Thai pigs. Cambodian pigs, which have a higher fat content and taste better, take longer to raise.
The prices have dropped, not only in Takeo, but all over the country. Farmers are growing so concerned that Prime Minister Hun Sen has been talking about the issue in recent days.
“This is hard to solve, because we have a free-market economy,” he said in a radio address. “If we had a centrally planned economy like [we did] before, we could control the market price.”
But as prime minister, his job is to serve all of the people, not just one group, he said. “If I try to satisfy the farmers by raising the prices, the city people will get angry with me and [possibly] demonstrate against the price hike.”
He said, however, he will do what he can to improve markets for the farmers.
Other government officials, meeting at a conference on poverty reduction that began Monday, discussed a series of ideas for improving the economy.
Tao Seng Huor, vice chairman for the Council on Agricultural and Rural Development, is slated to speak to the conference Tuesday.
One reason rice prices are low, officials said, is because farmers worked so hard to make up for the flood damage last year that they are expected to end up producing more rice than the country needs.
Tao Seng Huor’s prepared speech states that while farmers lost 17 percent of their crop during the flooding, they expected to produce a surplus in 2001 of 91,000 tons of milled rice.
Sok Siphana, secretary of state for the Ministry of Commerce, said the government has elected to try an “open-paddy” policy recommended by Japanese economists.
The policy involves building rice warehouses in areas bordering Vietnam and Thailand, to make it easier for those countries to purchase surplus rice from Cambodian farmers.
Increased demand should raise prices, the economists say. “This policy will allow the declining rice price to rise to an international standard,” Sok Siphana said.
Other ideas discussed include setting up village markets in all rural villages. Small or isolated settlements now must travel to other towns to sell their goods, which can discourage production, said Suos Sameth, chairman of the Supreme National Economic Council and a former Asian Development Bank representative in Phnom Penh.
“There is ample evidence showing that Cambodians ‘Can Do,’” he said.
But farmers and country people who work hard to produce goods get discouraged when they can find no convenient markets or have to sell at reduced prices, he said.
Rather than letting them become disillusioned as their efforts fail to pay off, he said, more accessible village markets “could be a viable scheme of the government in its effort to reduce poverty.”
A network of village markets will make it easier for farmers to eventually sell their products in bigger provincial and city markets, he said.
(Additional reporting by Ana Nov)
