Cambodia Prepare Agriculture Land Law

By Sok Lak

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on November 30 together to discuss on daft of Agriculture Land Law to prepare to summit to Council of Ministers for consideration and adoption.

H.E. Chan Sarun, Minister of Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said that Cambodia is an agricultural country which take central role of Cambodia economy.

According to the study of Crocker in 1962, 28 percent of the land in Cambodia is rich o fertile land, 19 percent is normal in fertile land, and other 53 percent is low in fertile land. The research of Cambodia-Australia in 1997 also showed that 23 percent of land is highly potential to paddy growth, 20 percent of land is middle potential, and 57 percent of land is low potential. “This reflects that Cambodia has great potential for agriculture development. But these lands became worse and worse, the factors are because of the way of using land is not good including farmer’ use of chemical fertilizers, changing agriculture land into resident land,” H.E. Chan Sarun said.

“To further effectively manage the agricultural land in Cambodia, the ministry spent two-years and several time in discussion to set up Agriculture Land Law,” minister stressed. Currently, the draft is working and assistance with United Nation FAO and development partners to compete and expected to submit it to Prime Minister soon for consideration and adoption, he mentioned.

These law aims to effectively manage agricultural land, sustainable use of agricultural land, ensure Cambodia’s agriculture to achieve rapid development in line with government to promote the rice export target.

The Cambodia population is about 14 million with around 18 square kilometers and more than 80 percent of the population earn a living on agriculture while the whole country has 6.7 million hectares of cultivated area, but the actual cultivated area only about 2.6 million, minister highlighted.

Agriculture land is one of the agricultural laws of MAFF and ministry will continue to work with development partners to develop more suitable for Cambodian agricultural law and related law.

H.E. So Khan Rithykun, Delegate to Royal Government of Cambodia and Director General of the General Directorate of Agriculture, said that this law set up in aiming to protect and using agricultural land across Cambodia to be sustainable and in line to future agriculture sector development as well as reduce poverty and promote the realization of the government of rice export target.