Agriculture
Agricultural commodities, processing and products
Cassava export boom leading to deforestation and poor air in Laos
Farmers are encroaching on national parks and protected forests in Laos, burning and clearing large areas to make room for cassava crops. The demand for cassava has seen it become the most profitable agricultural product in Laos, as demonstrated by the country’s February trade figures: cassava ...
Laotian Times/ANN
Netizens Report Mass Chicken Deaths Across Laos
The Laotian Times spoke with an official from the Lao Farmer Network regarding a poultry disease that has been killing many chickens lately as discussed by several residents in Laos on social media. Many Lao residents including foreigners living in Laos recently took to social media to state ...
Phontham Visapra
Heavy Rains Improve Mekong Life, But Concerns Remain
Heavy rains and a bumper fish crop have improved life along the Mekong River after a nearly four-year drought, poor harvests and the pandemic took a heavy toll on some 65 million people who rely on the waterway for their daily livelihoods. According to the Laos-based ...
Luke Hunt
No justice for Indigenous community taking on a Cambodian rubber baron
The mood outside the Kampong Thom Provincial Court had grown tense on the afternoon of July 26. Some 12 residents of Ngon village, an Indigenous Kuy community in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district, waited for the judge’s verdict. The group had spent roughly $200 traveling the ...
Gerald Flynn, Vutha Srey
Southeast Asia remains world rice bowl as pockets of region suffer crop disasters
Rice crops in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have taken a hit from flooding and conflict this year, casting a shadow on a mostly sunny outlook for Southeast Asia’s output of the key grain as the region deals with other potential longer term supply troubles, farm ...
RFA Burmese, RFA Khmer and RFA Lao
Harvesters in Mekong Delta can't operate for lack of oil
In the past few days, many farmers in some localities in the Mekong Delta are in despair because the rice in the summer-autumn rice in the paddy fields was ripe but harvesters did not have oil to operate. Mr. Giang Van Bao, an owner of a rice harvester ...
Tuan Quang - Translated by Anh Quan
Vietnam’s broken rice bowl
For generations farmers and their families harvesting their rice paddies in the fertile Mekong Delta have relied on the river’s bountiful fish resources and rice production for their subsistence. For millions, the pulse of life is the constant flow of the river. Those living along the ...
JAMES BORTON
The Mekong Delta is yearning for opportunities
If you enter “10.196725, 105.544721” in Google Maps, it will take you to a location in the Co Do District of Can Tho City. An orchard spanning several thousand square meters appears on the screen. Why does the orchard stand alone? Drag the mouse to the ...
Carolyn Turk
Kingdom to gain from production of hemp
The government is aiming to make Thailand a regional manufacturing centre for hemp products in the next five years to generate at least 25 billion baht in income, said Industry Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit on Sunday. The plan is projected to add more value to hemp grown ...
POST REPORTERS
Myanmar plans to double rice exports with focus on quality
Myanmar has set a goal of doubling rice exports in three years’ time by focusing on higher-quality varieties, according to the president of the nation’s rice federation. The country plans to ship as much as 4 million tonnes annually by 2025 from around 2 million tonnes ...
STRAITS TIMES / ANN