Social development
The poor
Sustainability and security concerns feed Southeast Asia’s rice conundrum
The balance of food sustainability and national security of Southeast Asia hangs on a tiny white grain. Rice is the daily staple of 3.5 billion people globally, providing about one-fifth of their calorie needs. It is the main food crop in Asia, which includes the world’s ...
PAUL TENG
Chasing climate-ready glutinous rice for food security in Thailand and Laos
Origin of glutinous rice There are three groups of glutinous rice-based on grain sizes, small (japonica), medium (upland), and long slender (indica) grains. The origin of glutinous rice has become a hot topic for discussion by evolutionists who speculate that glutinous rice has two roots. Glutinous ...
Apichart Vanavichit
Hongsa Power provides 100 houses for families displaced by construction
Hongsa Power Co., Ltd. has built 136 houses and other essential infrastructure to accommodate people who had to move from their homes in Kiewngiew village, Ngeun district, Xayaboury province, when the company extended its mining operations. The 136 new houses have electricity and water connections, while ...
Phomphong Laoin
Persons with disabilities given opportunities for income generation
Persons with disabilities and their households in Xieng Khuang and Savannakhet provinces are set to benefit from income generating activities, thanks to support from the Okard project. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Okard Community Based Inclusive Development (CBID) project has provided 520 million ...
Times Reporters
U.N. says about half of Myanmar's people could sink into poverty in 2022
Urban poverty is on course to triple in Myanmar, pushing nearly half the population below the poverty line next year, the United Nations said on Wednesday, as the twin impact of the pandemic and a military coup threaten progress made in the past decade. The army ...
Reuters
Another poor wet season endangers Cambodia’s biggest lake and its people
Climate change, unsustainable and illegal fishing and the proliferation of hydropower dams on rivers that feed Tonle Sap threaten the livelihoods of over one million Cambodians. Sarun Nong, a fisher on Koh Krabey, a small island in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake, takes another look at the fishing net ...
By Ate Hoekstra, The Third Pole
Republic of Korea provides US$9 million for rural development
The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry signed a Record of Discussion online on November 1 to initiate the Integrated Rural Development Project in Champassask, Saravan and Xekong provinces. The 5-year project is being implemented until 2025 with a total ...
Times Reporters
Back to the land: Thai forest draws young, green farmers
Like many locals, Matthana Abhaimoon left rural Thailand to study in the city. Unlike most, she chose to come back – and fight for her right to farm in the forest as her forefathers had done. After a 20-year campaign, residents of Mae Tha won a ...
Rina Chandran
Myanmar’s hidden hunger
Khin, a 59-year-old rice farmer, faced a distressing choice at the height of Myanmar’s monsoon season three months ago: sell a cow, a prized asset for agricultural households, or go hungry. She sold the animal for half its value. The proceeds went to buy food for ...
Thin Lei Win
Proper nutrition feeds into safer pregnancies and healthy children
Every day families welcome new life into the world. New parents and caregivers want to ensure each child gets the best start but the most basic of needs, proper nutrition, is not equitably accessible. This has devastating effects. Nearly half of all deaths in children under ...
STÉPHANE VIDRY AND BOON YEE YEONG