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Agriculture Related Social Safety-net
Paper for : 14th GDCC Meeting Royal Government of Cambodia
It is a privilege for me to deliver a statement on “Agriculture related social safety net, a response to Global financial Crisis” to the 14th GDCC Meeting at CDC today.
As you may know, Agriculture is the backbone of national economy, contributing 34,4% in GDP (2008) with 80% of the population living in rural areas and more than 70% of the country labor forces dependent on agriculture, improving food security as a factor to social safety net is the foremost priority of the RGC.
From 2003 to 2008, Agriculture has achieved significant result in food production with an average increase of 4,42% per year. Rice, generally, Symbolize the state of food security, in the country which contribute 52,7% of the country total crops, livestock production in (2008-2009) and 68% of calories intakes per capita. Other non-rice food includes subsidiary crops, livestock products (15,5%) and fishery products (25%) From 2000 until 2008 rice cultivation has increased in term of areas and production from 2.157.592Ha to 2.615.741Ha and from 4.040.900 T to 7.175.473 T respectively which rice surplus made a big jump from 407,359T of paddy in 2000 to 3,16millions tons of paddy in 2008-2009 Rice consumption averages 143Kg per capita/year in the general term Other non-rice foods such as subsidiary crops, livestock products, fishery products have increased steadily.
In achieving these, the RGC has developed and put in place many relevant policy frameworks to guide development when in poverty reduction and food security improvement have consistently been emphasized.
Some of these policy frameworks include: first and second Rectangular strategy, NSDP 2006-2010, SAW 2006-2010, the strategic Framework for food security and Nutrition 2008-2012.
However, national rice surplus achieved as not necessarily mean that food security exists across the country and every single Cambodian households has full access to food products in 2007, 30% of the population are under income poverty line and approximately 20% are under food poverty line calculated at calories intake of less than 1715kcal/pers/day. Most of them are living in the rural areas. Those people do not have adequate access to food.
Measures should be taken to tackle food insecurity for those marginal peoples. Beside Government efforts to increase and diversify production in a sustainable manner, there are a number of external funded projects (which appear in the appendix) being implemented with specific purpose of reducing poverty and improving food security among the poor and vulnerable groups.
In response to the global financial
crisis, the following measures should be undertaken:
The five programmes are:
(2)- Implement Government initiatives of “Agricultural Fund” to support agriculture; (3)- Continue implementation of Government fiscal policy on agricultural inputs, agricultural machineries and equipments; and strengthen monitoring on price of imported fertilizer (4)- Intensify and diversify food production by smallholder farming households, particularly those that are food insecure; (5)- Accelerating access of smallholders to improved technology, improved agricultural inputs, improved soil quality and water management; (6)- To further enhance agricultural productivity and diversification at national level; (7)- Increase public investment in physical infrastructure including transportation, irrigation, market facility and agricultural research and extension; (8)- Strengthening community based organization; (9)- Develop agro-processing and agri-business; (10)- Develop micro credit. Distribution of Relevant On-going Projects by Agro-ecological Regions:
Thank you for your kind attention.
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