Biofuel crops
Cassava
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 ...
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 ...
China offers cassava hope
Cambodia has marked its first Cassava Day with expectations of greater exports to China, one of the world’s big markets for the tuberous root. Speaking at the celebration in Battambang province on Monday, Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak said the government is speeding up exports of cassava ...
VN's export ratio of farm produce in decline
Vietnam’s total export turnover has been growing at an annual rate of 12.8% but outbound shipments of agricultural products have faced numerous difficulties and their annual export growth was recorded at a mere 2.4% in the 2012-2016 period. The export ratio of agricultural products, as a ...
Cultivation of cassava still firmly rooted
Cambodian farmers continue to expand cassava cultivation despite falling commercial prices for the crop and low international trade volumes, new data from the Ministry of Agriculture show. The total area of cassava cultivation grew 34 percent last year, with the starchy tuber planted on 771,000 ...