About Us

Target Provinces: The project works in the five provinces around Tonle Sap Lake—Pursat, Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, and Kampong Thom—which is one of Cambodia’s two major rice-growing regions, but which is predominantly rain-fed (very low access to irrigation) and has communities with particularly high vulnerabilities and low adaptive capacities to climate change.
Project Components:

Component 1: Improving the enabling environment for CCA in rice and related priority sectors through integrated policies and planning.
Component 2: Supporting resilient production systems in rice-based communities for improved livelihoods. 
Component 3: Scaling up adaptation technologies and practices in selected value chains through partnerships, markets, and investments.
Component 4: Building effective knowledge management, innovations, and M&E systems.

Climate change

Climate change poses significant current and expected risks to Cambodia, particularly for farmers. Forecast trends indicate a wetter wet season with more intense rainfall events (leading to increased flooding), a hotter and drier dry season (leading to increased droughts), a later onset and shorter duration of the wet season (leading to longer droughts and more crop failures), and increased variability in weather patterns. Agriculturally reliant communities, such as those in the Tonle Sap plain, are particularly vulnerable to these threats (high exposure, high sensitivity), especially those relying on rain-fed production of relatively lower-value commodity crops such as rice. Unfortunately, these communities and the institutions that support them also have low adaptive capacities, particularly at sub-national levels.

Cambodia's Agricultural Sector

Cambodia’s economic development is heavily dependent on the country’s rich natural resource base. Agriculture remains an important sector of the economy, representing roughly 23% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017.7 The agricultural sector is also the main source of livelihood for the majority of the rural population and is essential to poverty reduction and household food security.

Almost 70% of the Cambodian population is engaged in agriculture, about 60% of whom are women. The majority of farmers are smallholders, with 21% of households being landless and a further 45% owning less than one hectare.8 Agricultural production is predominantly rain-fed and characterized by low input and low to moderate soil fertility, making the sector highly dependent on climatic conditions. Rice is Cambodia’s main staple and provides approximately 70% of nutritional needs. It is the principal crop of farmers, rice production accounts for 15% of agricultural value addition, and paddy occupies 75% of cultivated land. Rice production, processing, and marketing employ about 3 million people, which is more than 20% of the country’s working-age population.

Around 50% of paddy (harvested, unprocessed rice grain) produced in Cambodia is exported to neighboring countries (primarily Vietnam and Thailand) for milling and further distribution, which represents a huge lost opportunity for Cambodian rice millers and traders to add value, export directly, and create employment locally. Limited capacities to comply with premium quality and food-safety standards constrain Cambodian producers’ access to international rice markets despite strong market demands.

Four other food crops—corn, cassava, soybean, and mung bean—occupy approximately 14% of Cambodia’s crop area. The remaining 3% is used for growing vegetables, sesame, peanut, sugarcane, sweet potato, potato, tobacco, and jute. Animal husbandry is traditionally practiced at the household level. Cattle and buffalo provide most agricultural draught and manure for fertilizing crops, and constitute essential household assets. Many rural families raise pigs and chickens at the household level.

What is the main problem?

In the baseline scenario, Cambodia faces increasing vulnerability to climate change, including in its efforts to increase rice production. Low capacity and insufficient access to technologies, compounded by an inadequate policy environment, keep producers in a situation of high vulnerability to climate risks and hazards, and lead to a gradual decline in agricultural-based livelihoods. Without the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) intervention, Cambodia’s agricultural sector will increasingly suffer under the impacts of climate change. Agricultural production and livelihoods, particularly the majority of smallholders in rural areas, will remain impacted by a variety of climate hazards.

Without LDCF funding, private investment to support smallholder producers, producer groups including within CPAs, ACs, and SMEs in the forms of technology transfer, contract farming arrangements at scale, etc. is currently unlikely due to the investment risk involved (at least in the short-term, given coordination problems and prevailing insecure property rights). Because of the small size of landholdings and high levels of poverty in the target provinces, farmers currently do not have the resources to climate-proof their agricultural practices and businesses without external support. Given Cambodia’s status as a least developed country, the available public budget to support the types of activities envisioned in the project is limited.

The project will not take place without involvement of the LDCF. Other key donors supporting agricultural development are focusing their support on initiatives for which climate change issues are subordinated to other priorities—e.g., food security, value chain development, and rural finance. This project complements baseline initiatives by enabling direct incremental investments in climate-adaptive technologies, capacities, and assets for vulnerable rice-growing communities in the Tonle Sap basin.