In northwestern Cambodia, fluctuations in world cassava prices cause uncertainty, pain among former Khmer Rouge stalwarts.

By Ten Soksreinith | VOA Khmer | July 6, 2018
អានអត្ថបទ​នេះជាភាសាខ្មែរ

Phnom Proek Commune, Battambang Province Farmer Khoem Yeng squats down nimbly and plants several cassava cuttings into the red-brown soil of her farm plot, which sits at the foot of one of the many rocky hills that dot Phnom Proek Commune.

Like many farmers here, the 68-year-old woman is concerned that unreliable weather might affect her newly planted cassava, as it did last year when unusually heavy rains in dry season caused a poor harvest here in northwestern Cambodia.

“If it is warm weather, we are going to be fine. But if the weather is like this, we are worried,” Khoem Yeng said, as rains began to fall during an interview on her 2-hectare farm in mid-March.

Her son Chan Tha, 37, said a sharp drop in cassava prices in recent years was another serious worry for the roughly 7,000 residents of the commune’s five villages, who rely almost entirely on large-volume export of cassava across the nearby border to Thailand.

Communists turned cassava farmers

Until recently, cassava had been a boon for the area, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold that was isolated and impoverished when local guerilla commander Chea Phuong Phearum decided to abandon Pol Pot in 1996 and took up an amnesty offer to join the Cambodian government’s armed forces.

The former ultra-communist fighters and their families quickly turned enterprising and used their location on the border to their advantage, recalled Cheum Khom, a 60-year-old ex-cadre and former commune chief.

They cleared remaining patches of forest and began to grow cassava – a hardy, quick-growing tuber that requires little pesticide or fertilizer – and they used their connections with nearby Thailand to foster export.

In Thailand, cassava is processed for further export to China, where its starch is used in food processing and for animal feed.

These days, only some village names – such as Beng S’at village, named after the Cambodian Beng tree – serve as a reminder of the time before the cassava boom and before Khmer Rouge-facilitated logging by Thai companies, when the area was known for its dense forest and prized tropical hardwood species.

The booming cassava export business was mostly arranged through Thai traders who crossed into Phnom Proek with machinery to dry the raw harvest at local farms before transporting it to Thailand. In the neighboring Malai District, also a one-time Khmer Rouge stronghold, entrepreneurial ex-cadres set to cassava-processing and export companies to cash in on the boom.

Falling prices fuel debt, migration

In the past three years, however, Phnom Proek exports began to suffer from new Cambodian customs requirements for Thai traders, Cheum Khom said. At the same time, a dip in global commodity prices also pushed down local cassava prices.

Last year, cassava prices in Cambodia dropped around 35 percent, from $0.17 per kilo in 2014 to $0.11 per kilo, while nationwide cassava exports, 90 percent of which goes to Thailand, shrunk 21 percent in the first nine months of 2017 alone, The Phnom Penh Post reported.

Suddenly, the region’s success with cassava exports became a weakness, and the local economy faltered.

“People are growing crops, but there is no market. The price of the crops has dropped. It is barely enough to live on,” Cheum Khom said.

According to the Battambang Province agriculture department, the area of cassava cultivation was nearly halved from 2016 to 2017.

Roem Rattana, 28, whose family runs a small restaurant, said business had been difficult because of the faltering farm sector. Because struggling farmers don’t eat out, “We don’t make good money when farmers are not doing well with their crops,” she said.

A few years ago, Chan Tha said he and his mother used to profit each year by about $960 per hectare, enough to make a decent living. Now, they are scrambling to survive.

“We get a low price for our crops,” he said. Like many others, he makes up for lost cassava income by sneaking into Thailand to work as an unregistered day laborer in factories or on construction sites.

Cheum Khom estimated that at least 300 farmers from his commune slip across the border for work.

He questions Hun Sen’s government for deciding to limit Thai traders’ access to Cambodian farmers unless they pay a fee at the border. Although trade continues with Cambodian middlemen, they’ve forced farmers into accepting lower prices.

“I heard the Thai traders would be charged 7,000 Thai Baht ($224) per truck to get in. How can they profit?” said Cheum Khom adding that he didn’t know if the charges were official fees or bribes being solicited from the traders.

Commune Chief Choeun Sopheak, of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), acknowledged that Thai traders had offered better cassava prices before, but he denied that customs officials bore responsibility for the falling prices.

Political turmoil adds to economic woes

The recently increased political repression in Cambodia has added another wrinkle to Phnom Proek’s economic woes as the CPP government’s decision last November to dissolve the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) saw Phnom Proek lose its democratically elected local leaders.

Choeun Sopheak A young CPP commune council member, was chosen by CPP to replace Cheum Kom as commune chief.Cheum Khom, a locally respected veteran who lost his left eye in the 1975 battle for Phnom Penh, was elected CNRP commune chief in June 2017, only to be replaced by CPP member Choeun Sopheak five months later.

Cheum Khom is among a number of CNRP commune chiefs stripped of their posts in eastern Cambodia’s former Khmer Rouge areas, where the opposition party is fairly popular. The region will not have a choice to vote CNRP in the national elections in July.

Cheum Khom said there was discontent over the decision in Phnom Proek, but people dare not speak out or “they will be faced with oppression.” He held out hope for a return of the CNRP and another chance to contest in his commune, adding, “I think there is a possibility.”

The nationwide crackdown has also affected media and civil society, and this was noticeable even in this remote commune, as five military police officers followed and filmed VOA reporters during interviews.

Undeterred by the intimidation, Chan Tha, the farmer, publicly stressed that Phnom Proek needs the leaders it elected to pull the commune out of the current economic crisis.

“I think it [dissolving the CNRP] affects us because it involves our community leadership,” he said. “We need those who can help us improve our livelihoods.”