Crop products and commodities
Biofuel crops
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
Thailand taps rice, sugar biomass to wean itself from fossil fuels
Thailand has launched a full-fledged effort to adopt biomass as a major future energy source, a drive that has received a boost from companies looking for relief from skyrocketing fossil fuel prices. Thailand took up the bio-circular-green economic model a year ago as a way to ...
YOHEI MURAMATSU, Nikkei staff writer
Cassava more fruitful than rice in Cambodia, says UNDP study
As a national policy on cassava production nears finalisation, the government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have called on farmers to grow cassava. The government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have called on farmers to grow cassava as a national policy on ...
Thou Vireak
Cassava prices hit a new low
Cassava prices in Cambodia experienced a sharp drop this month leading to heavy losses for smallholder farmers unable to quickly switch to more profitable crops and recoup their mounting losses, a provincial agriculture official said yesterday.Faced with low prices of around 144 riel ($0.035) per ...
Locust outbreak spreads further across northern provinces
The yellow-spined bamboo locust outbreak is expanding in northern provinces despite the best efforts of surveillance teams at central and local level to control the insects with chemical spraying. The locust population currently is expanding in 750 locations, involving 309 villages in 24 districts of ...
North Asia Resources to turn cassava into fuel
Hong Kong-listed firm North Asia Resources Holding Ltd announced yesterday that it has purchased 14,000 hectares of an economic land concession in Pursat province from Henan Tianguan Enterprise Group for $53.2 million.Read more ...
Sugar rush puts monster mill well ahead of target
Cambodia’s biggest sugar mill has finished its two-month production run, producing half a million tonnes of refined white sugar, nearly five times what the company predicted at the beginning of the harvest season, a company representative said on May 22. Kuy Yoeurn, an administrative manager ...
Families call for return of land
A group of 20 people representing 554 families locked in a 10-year land dispute yesterday submitted a petition asking the government to end the lengthy conflict. The families, from Samroang town in Oddar Meanchey province, want help from officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry ...
Problem of producing cheap biofuel from cassava solved
The state’s research agency and energy policymakers have finally discovered a way to produce biofuel from cassava at a competitive cost, says a senior Energy Ministry official. Previously the use of cassava in ethanol production was not viable despite the abundance of the shrub, because ...
Sugar slowly moves to market
Cambodia’s five major sugar producers exported just 4 percent of the country’s planned refined sugar capacity to the international market last year, equalling only 80,000 tonnes, a sign that government officials said means the sector still has ample room for growth as sugar companies push ...
