Rural Assistance Program

Rural Assistance Program

Rural Assistance Program

Rural Assistance Program

Rural Assistance Program

Rural Assistance Program

Rural Assistance Program

Rural Assistance Program

Rural Assistance Program

About Our Program

Late in 1998 we formed a partnership with the then newly established Cambodian NGO, CEDAC, with the aim of improving the lives of peasant farmers and restoring the ecological balance in a targeted area of the countryside through extensive planting of trees. Investigation of the wide variety of problems and challenges facing the farmers in our target area led us, step by step, to broaden our program to include the efforts described below.
We started in January 1999 with just two very impoverished villages in the rural Baphnom District of Prey Veng Province. Now, more than 16 years later, our program encompasses an area including dozens of villages spread across not only Baphnom District, but also the adjacent districts of Kampong Trabek and Preah Sdaech.

Below we describe some of the key components of our program.

Providing Seeds, Seedlings, and Livestock

We supply some of our farmers with locally appropriate vegetable seeds, fruit tree seedlings, small livestock (typically ducklings or a piglet) or fish fingerlings to stock their hand dug ponds. For these farmers and for those who may have no rice field at all, the vegetable seeds and fruit tree seedlings, baby pigs, ducks and fish fingerlings which we may supply them make it more possible for them to remain employed on their own land rather than abandoning their farms for the uncertainties of a migrant worker's life in Phnom Penh.

Drilling Water Wells

Over the past 16 years we have drilled and installed nearly 500 water wells to ensure our farmers and their families access to a reliable supply of clean, safe water, especially during the long annual dry season. Those wells allow our farmers to continue working productively on their land even during the dry season whereas in the past, driven by a lack of water, they had typically abandoned their farms during the dry season to seek work as construction laborers in Phnom Penh or as rattan harvesters in the forests in the northern provinces of the country.

Tree Nurseries for Reforestation

We supply materials, seeds and instruction to help some of our best farmers establish small tree seedling nurseries. Those farmers then share the seedlings with their neighbors and everyone is strongly encouraged to plant trees around their houses and along their paddy dikes. The tree varieties which our team selects are locally appropriate ones which produce abundant biomass to help restore soil fertility and improve the ecological balance of this badly deforested area. Increasing tree coverage in our village is important to restoring soil fertility and promoting the conversion to chemical-free farming.

Moringa Cultivation

Our Foundation began the Moringa Project in a pursuit to provide work and a stable income to farmers in Phnom Penh. We began our pilot with 50 farmers, 18 of which are women. The processor in the city calls for the farmers to provide 500 kg of moringa leaves per day, but the amount will increase by 1,000 or more as more organizations in need of moringa leaves join the contract. For nearly all of our farmers, this moriga cultivation program will provide them with a steady, and significant cash income for the first time in their lives.

Promotion of Chemical Free Farming

In a place where most adults are illiterate, the dangers posed by the potential misuse of chemical pesticides and fertilizers present a unique set of problems. Our program teaches farmers to employ organic farming techniques to increase crop yields, reduce costs and rid their environment of the harmful residues from excessive use of agricultural chemicals.

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