It starts with knowledge

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Ms. Sao Savoeun, female farmer in the southern part of Cambodia, participated in several trainings in entrepreneurship, marketing, business planning and growing techniques. The trainings were offered by CFAP, the Cambodian Farmers Association Federation of Agricultural Producers. She gained a lot of skills in both theory and practices which led to higher yields. She now decided to expand the vegetable growing area.

Ms. Sao Savoeun lives in Tachey village, Kampong Chamlang commune, Svay Chrum district, Svay Rieng province. She and her husband have two children; both of them are studying in grade 5 in the commune. Her mother is living with her family. They own 20 000 square meters of land where they grow vegetables, rice and fruit crops.

Her mother is a broom maker and her husband worked as construction worker in Svay Rieng province in the past two years. Before Sao Savoeun joined CFAP, her family income depended on her husband and her mother. Her husband worked in Svay Rieng and earned 10 000 riel (USD 2.45) per day with his construction work. "My family often had to spend money on food, medicines and so on which the family income did not cover. At home, we grew only a few traditional types of vegetables such as kang kong and bottled gourds. Because we did not have experiences nor knowledge we did not expect to get more income from vegetables" she said.    

Ms. Savoeun is now a model farmer. She joined CFAP in March 2010. Shortly after her registration, she participated in a farm field school and training in entrepreneurship, marketing and business planning. In the school she studied on Chinese kale growing techniques and at her house she experimented with long bean trial by applying new growing techniques on 200 square meters.

From the trial results and the trainings, she gained a lot of skills in both theory and practices. Also her mother and especially her husband learned a lot, because she usually taught and showed her husband what she has learned at school. "Previously my husband did not know how to grow vegetables technically. He always applied only traditional knowledge but now he can grow very well",  she said. He quit his job and now is the main person in the family for vegetable growing.

They are confident that they can make more money from vegetable growing so they decided to expand their vegetable growing area to 7,000 square meters. They grow a lot of types of vegetable such as cucumbers, spinaches, wax gourds, long beans, tomatoes and bitter gourds. During the harvesting period of bitter gourds and spinaches she can earn at least 20 000 riel (USD 5) per day and she really hopes that she will get more and more income when she harvests other vegetables.

Her mother, who often stayed away from home a few weeks per month to buy broom materials in other provinces, now decided to stay at home to help Sao and her husband to grow vegetables because this will generate more income for the family than working as broom maker.