Cambodian Farmer Federation Association of Agricultural Producers (CFAP Cambodia)

Cambodian Farmer Federation Association of Agricultural Producers (CFAP Cambodia)

•  The Cambodian Farmer Association Federation of Agricultural Producers (CFAP) found in January 2002 (15 years) following by reformulation and development of her working policy, governing structure accordingly for a first period of five years (2002-2006) and led by nine Commune Farmers’ Associations+ in Svay Rieng province (South East Cambodia).

•  The Cambodian Farmer Association Federation of Agricultural Producers (CFAP) found in January 2002 (15 years) following by reformulation and development of her working policy, governing structure accordingly for a first period of five years (2002-2006) and led by nine Commune Farmers’ Associations+ in Svay Rieng province (South East Cambodia).

•  During the 6^th CFAP General Assembly held on 30^th December 2017, the board agreed to amend the organizational statute and internal working policy. The GA decided to move CFAP’s head quarter from Svay Rieng to Phnom Penh by keeping office in Svay Rieng as regional office. With respect to the Laws of Cambodia on Association and Non-Governmental Organization, therefore the organization had also amended her logo and long term name from the Cambodian Farmer Association Federation of Agricultural Producers to the Cambodian Farmer Federation Association of Agricultural Producers. The organization has a three-tiered levels i.e. national, provincial and commune/sangkat.

•  There are 26 farmers’ organizations (03 associations and 23 cooperatives) now have registered as members of CFAP Cambodia from 11 provinces in Cambodia (Banteay Meanchey^*, Kandal, Kampong Thom, Kampong Cham, Kampot, Kep, Odar Meanchey^*, Siem Reap, Prey Veng, Svay Rieng, and Tboung Khmum). CFAP has a total member of 21138households which 9769households lead by women (46%) come from 173 villages, 50 communes/Sangkat, 26 districts. CFAP also has about 105,690 individual farmer members, which 54,959 female (52%) as affiliated members.

•  The organization aims to build the capacity of farmers’ associations/cooperatives in Cambodia to become professional service providers, so they can extend services to their farmer members and clients directly by themselves now and in the future. The current programmes of the organization are (1). Agriculture, (2). Capacity Building, (3). Agribusiness/marketing/value chain, (4). Extension, (5). Use of a revolving fund and (6). Institutional Strengthening.

•  It is the fact that most of farmers’ associations/cooperatives in Cambodia are still depending much on external funding to continue their activities/services with farmer members while their incomes come from an annual membership subscription fee is not regular and it is very little that the organization(s) are hard to continue their work effectively for farmer members.

•  Many rural and small scale farmers in Cambodia have low and irregular incomes from agriculture because their livelihood depends almost exclusively on low-yielding rice, vegetable, crop and animal production. Fluctuating rice, vegetables, crops and animals prices caused the rural poor families trap in constant debt.

•  Farmer organizations in Cambodia could not get access to grant/loan from the financial institutions/Banks with low interest rate (3%-5% per year), moreover the financial institutions in Cambodia always required their clients included the associations/coops to deposit collaterals rather than business plan to guarantee loan. The banks in Cambodia have extremely high interest rate i.e. it has varied from 12% to 20.4% of interest rate charged per year, it depends on types of loan. CFAP in 2014 has developed a very strong strategic business action plan for a period of five years (2014-2019), but the organization has estimated that it would have not achieved the plans by end 2019 if there was no sufficient grant/loan to run the business plan. Moreover, it was also affected seriously by the unclear policy of the government to support farmers’ organizations in Cambodia.

•  Involvement of farmers’ associations/cooperatives in other development programmes is one of the most important activities of CFAP Cambodia to ensure that farmer members and their organizations as members have opportunity to involve in the existing and or projects/programmes of development partners and the government in Cambodia. After the training workshop organized by CFAP in July 7^th, 2017 in Phnom Penh to strengthen FOs as members in MTCP2 network partially on “FOs Involvement in other Development Programmes” aiming also to strengthen network between FOs and development agencies, hopefully farmers’ organizations as members would get involved in projects/programmes of the development agencies as well as government’s projects/programmes in the future.

•  In order to bring strong voices of farmers heard to the public, therefore CFAP as the NIA of MTCP2 has initiated to establish the so called “national farmers’ platform” in collaboration with four other farmers’ organizations that have similar vision, mission and goal to support farmers in Cambodia. CFAP has facilitated the five farmers’ organizations to work together and finally signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in December 2016.

•  The establishment of the national farmers’ platform aimed to strengthen on institutional capacity, linkage of local producers access to markets and policy process/development on agriculture and water.