A huge Thai agricultural company has put former Khmer Rouge rebels in Pailin to work growing hybrid corn, company official Pin Vannaro said Monday.
In April, the Charoen Pokphand Group sold a Thai variety of red corn to the farmers in Pailin, as well as to people in Kandal and Kompong Cham provinces.
The farmers were expected to grow more of the corn, which Charoen Pokphand agreed to buy at a rate of 400 riel, or $0.12, per kilogram. The farmers are free to sell to a higher bidder if they found one.
The farmers in Pailin produced 10,000 tons of corn during the growing season between April and July. Farmers in Kompong Cham and Kandal produced another 100,000, Pin Vannaro said at his Phnom Penh office.
“We have to cut poverty and to do that we have to focus on agriculture,” Ted Ngoy of the Phnom Penh Chamber of Commerce told Reuters.
There could be as many as one more complete growing season before the year is over, he said. The corn will be used by Charoen Pokphand for animal feed, he said.
