Abstract/Summary

This working paper details the results of a study carried out from 1996 to 1997 of 244 households in three villages selected for their contrasting characteristics. One is in a rice surplus area of Prey Veng province; the second, in Kompong Speu province, is in a drought-prone area subject to violent fluctuations in rice production; the third, on the banks of the Mekong River in Kandal province, is primarily a fishing village, but with rice and reed production as additional sources of employment and income. The study therefore covers a range of agroecological and socio-economic conditions representative of Cambodia.

The paper finds that rural Cambodians are highly dependent on rice. Rice accounts for between 80 and 84 percent of calorie intake in the three villages, and for between 38 and 50 percent of expenditure on food. In the foreseeable future, rice will continue to be at the centre of food security in Cambodia. But this does not mean that to achieve food security a household has to produce all its own rice. Food security derives from the power to obtain food, whether directly by growing it or indirectly by having something to exchange for it.

 Rural poverty and mild to moderate malnutrition are a widespread, though the incidence of “extreme” poverty and severe malnutrition are relatively low. Particularly disturbing is the precarious situation of the rural poor. Compared with many other Asian countries, Cambodia has an abundance of land and the benefit of recent land reform. Yet the poor have increasingly limited access to land, and few own animals. To a large extent, they have to rely on their access to common property resources and the sale of their labour. Migration in search of wage work is desperate in some places, with women in particular taking on heavy labour in agriculture and construction in order to repay loans. As well as financing agricultural production, an important purpose of such loans, at high rates of interest, is to deal with health emergencies, which often have catastrophic consequences.

The paper concludes with recommendations for a phased approach to policy implementation for food security. Interventions in credit and health are seen as a short- to medium-term strategy, along with policies supportive of agricultural and rural economic growth. Work on policies for land and common property resources needs to be started immediately, but these will take longer to implement. A prerequisite of an effective food security policy of any kind is the existence of suitable development institutions at the local level—in the form both of government rural development institutions (currently non-existent at this level) and nongovernmental organisations (not operating in the areas of highest food insecurity).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64202/wp.06.199812