Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries H.E. Dith Tina on Feb. 17 presided over a forum on Sustaining Food Systems, Securing Futures: Bridging Nations Transforming Nutrition, highlighting the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC)’s commitment to promote agriculture development.
The forum was held in Siem Reap provincial city under a collaboration between the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) and Germany’s GIZ with the participation from developing partners, foreign embassies’ representatives and other relevant parties.
In his address, the minister emphasised the role of agriculture in Cambodia’s economic growth, supplying foods abroad.
“Cambodia is currently not only producing enough food to meet domestic demand, but also exporting agricultural products worldwide. This success has been driven by the expansion of arable land through continued efforts to clear land, improve irrigation systems, improve infrastructure and adopt modern technologies, including the development and use of improved pure plant varieties,” he said.
He also highlighted the government’s ongoing efforts to promote sustainable agriculture development. “The Cambodian government is firmly committed to promoting agriculture and rural development to ensure food security and food safety, towards an efficient, resilient and sustainable agricultural system, and to identifying actions to ensure environmental sustainability and preparedness for responding to climate change,” he said.
The minister highly appreciated CARD and GIZ for their good cooperation in organising a forum for dialogue, exchange of knowledge and experience across the country from different regions on agriculture, nutrition and climate change, which are of utmost importance to humanity, especially in strengthening cooperation and partnership to be stronger and more effective.
He encouraged the GIZ and relevant development partners to pursue further initiatives to support developing countries, especially for programmes to promote smart technologies, provide additional development investments and financing to key stakeholders, market access, value chain connectivity, trade facilitation, market incentives, and other additional opportunities.
The RGC has announced the implementation of a new strategic policy for agricultural development, aiming to upgrade agriculture from household farming to commercial farming and enhance farmers’ income through value-added products.
Under the priority policy, the government deployed 250 agricultural officials and the number will be raised to over 1,300 by 2025 in communes nationwide to add human resources for the agricultural sector’s development.
Cambodia exported a total volume of 11.66 million tonnes of agricultural products in 2024, earning US$4,792 million, an official report showed.
The main products Cambodia exported in the said period included rice, bananas, mangoes, cassava, cashew nuts, corn, pepper and tobacco.
