[PHNOM PENH POST]
An ethanol plant planned for Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey province would
push local production of the crop, as well as decreased reliance on
foreign markets, officials and cassava farmers said yesterday.
Construction
on the joint venture between a Chinese firm and Cambodia’s National
Company for Development will break ground in April 2012 and should be
completed by the end of the year, Banteay Meanchey provincial governor
Ung Oeun said. He declined to name the Chinese partner.
The
processing plant, to be built in the province’s Thmarpouk district, will
need up to 2 million tonnes of dry cassava a year, Ung Oeun said.
That
regular demand should help to stabilise the Kingdom’s cassava prices –
which have been irregular given Cambodia’s reliance on exports to
Vietnam and Thailand – as well as put funds into much needed
infrastructure for the agricultural industry, farmers said. Domestic
processing would also decrease the flow of raw cassava to neighbouring
countries.
“Every year we are worried about the cassava market
because we depend on markets in Vietnam and Thailand … and that makes
the price undependable,” said Keo Sopheak, a cassava farmer in Thmarpouk
district, Banteay Meanchey province, who added that a new processing
plant in the country could create more reliable price fluctuation.
Increased
competition in the cassava market could help improve poor road
conditions in the Kingdom’s northwest, Sory Khoun, a cassava farmer in
Malia district, Banteay Meanchey, said yesterday. A stable domestic
market could also reduce farmer reliance on the Thai and Vietnamese
markets, he said. Both farmers said an unstable cassava market had led
to the harvesting of only a fraction of their crop.
Cambodia’s
cassava exports nearly doubled between January and October this year
compared to the same period last year, and export revenues for the crop
jumped by more than 240 per cent, according to Ministry of Commerce
statistics.
The country exported 228,273 tonnes of fresh and dry
cassava worth about US$10 million during the first 10 month of the
year, up from 116,668 tonnes worth $2.93 million the year before.
Cambodia cultivated 190,000 hectares and 3.9 million tonnes of cassava
in 2010, according to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry
and Fisheries.
Sorm Yin, president of Malai Trading Company,
exported 60,000 tonnes of cassava to Thailand last year but said
domestic processing will reduce his reliance on Thai buyers.
Increased
cassava planting could reduce the quality of Cambodia’s soil, he added,
as the crop requires the heavy use of fertilisers and cannot be planted
in the same spot for consecutive years.
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