Agriculture and fishing

French agribusiness Socfin Group, which has managed rubber plantations in Cambodia since 2008, has seen rubber prices plummet and land claims multiply while waiting for its first returns on investment. The Post’s Ananth Baliga sat down with Jef Boedt, general manager of Socfin Cambodia, to ...

Thai rice exports are expected to have another difficult year as the world market is likely to be volatile amid foreign exchange and oil price risks, according to exporters. Charoen Laothammatas, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said the association projected shipments would slip to 9 ...

A sea gypsy community in tambon Rawai of Phuket’s Muang district on 27 January demanded the government fast-track multiple legal disputes over land plots between them and the private sector after their access to the sea was blocked. The move came after more than 100 men blocked a ...

The Thai Rice Exporters Association expects a decrease in the volume of rice exports this year. Keep reading ...

The Thai government’s planned diversion of billions of cubic metres of water from the Mekong River, described last week by a Thai Ministry of Water Resources representative as being as far as two years away, has already begun. The pumping, which is pulling water from the ...

Thailand’s Board of Investment (BoI) is set to propose promotional packages to support “smart farmer” projects at its next board meeting. Secretary-general Hiranya Sujinai said packages should combine both the BoI’s investment privileges and other support such as finance, technical assistance and  market access development.  Keep reading ...

Opium poppy farmers from Myanmar attending an international conference on “prohibited plants” have rejected a ban on growing their crops and urged an end to forced eradication. “We reject prohibition and the war on drugs,” small-scale farmers from 14 countries, including Myanmar, said in a joint ...

A farmer from Battambang province took this year’s honor of growing the country’s top rice paddy on 24 January as industry heavyweights gathered in Phnom Penh for the first of the three-day Cambodia Rice Forum. “It is unbelievable,” said Hul Khlim, president of Sangha Phal Agriculture Community, ...

Thailand’s Royal Irrigation Department has begun pumping water from the Mekong River and redirecting it to drought-afflicted regions of the Northeast. The RID has shied away from using the term “diverted”, instead saying only that it is “using” the water as it looks to bypass consultation ...

More than 1000 activists of a Christian-based anti-narcotics group are to have police protection after getting the go-ahead from the Kachin State government to destroy over 1600 hectares (4000 acres) of opium poppy fields. Permission was received on 21 January to mount the mass operation in Waingmaw ...