Cambodia’s rice output up 2 percent in 2011 despite floods: initial report

   PHNOM PENH, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia’s total paddy rice output this year is about 8.4 million tons, an increase of 2 percent from the last year’s harvest of 8.25 million tons, according to the preliminary report of the Ministry of Agriculture on Monday.
   The report showed that the country had planted 2.9 million hectares of rainy and dry season rice paddies this year, up from 2.7 million hectares last year.
   It added that the average output per hectare had also increased from 2.9 tons of paddy rice last year to 3.1 tons this year.
   Ngin Chhay, director of the ministry’s rice crop department, said that the slight increase of rice output this year was due to flood devastation between August and October that destroyed up to 260,000 hectares of rice paddies.
   “However, we have done well despite the year of flood calamity,” he told Xinhua by telephone. “We estimate that the country still has around 4 million tons of paddy rice left over for exports next year.” 
   He said that the final report of the country’s rice output in 2011 will be available in April next year.
   Cambodia is an agrarian country. More than 80 percent of the population is farmers. In August, 2010, the government has launched the rice export promotion strategy, aiming at exporting one million tons of milled rice by 2015.
   However, so far, the country can export only the small amount of its milled rice due to the lack of sophisticated post-harvesting technology and capital.
   It’s estimated that Cambodia needs roughly 350 million U.S. dollars to invest in hi-tech post harvest technology and to purchase paddy rice from farmers for processing to achieve its self-imposed target of one-million-ton rice exports by 2015.
   According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce on Monday, the country had exported 149,100 tons of milled rice in the first eleven months of this year, an increase of 13.4 percent, compared to the same period last year of 131,450 tons.
   During the period, Cambodia earned the revenues of about 87 million U.S. dollars, up 200 percent from 29 million U.S. dollars.