Opposition leader attacks government for its poor agricultural system

By: Serath Nguon

PHNOM PENH (The Cambodia Herald)-Opposition leader Sam Rainsy blamed the government led by Prime Minister Hun Sen for poor agricultural system, which was unable to help the poor to benefit from microcredit.

In his facebook page, Sam Rainsy posted an article titled “DOES MICROCREDIT IN CAMBODIA ENRICH BORROWERS OR MAKE THEM POORER AND POORER?”. In the article, he said that in general, any credit takes the form of a LOAN for the borrower to use to become richer. 

“But in present Cambodia countless people, especially farmers BORROW MONEY from institutions such as ACLEDA (a microfinance company) only to cover operating losses, which occur every year, he added.

Sam Rainsy said that therefore those farmers don’t use LOANS to start or make any business more prosper but only to cover recurrent losses related to their existing farming activities so as to avoid bankruptcy and death.

Sam Rainsy argued that the basic problem is the current agricultural system put in place by the government which squeezes small farmers who cannot survive under the present conditions and are compelled to borrow more and more money every year. 

He added that farmers are squeezed when they have to buy inputs (fertilizers, PESTICIDES, gasoline) at excessively high prices and when they have to sell their farm products at excessively low prices. Commercial abuses at both ends of the production process are the result of government corruption that allows commercial monopolies and monopsonies leading to unfair buying and selling prices for farmers. 

He claimed that because those farmers cannot make any profit out of their farms to reimburse their LOANS, they lose their houses and farmlands that are used as collaterals. This is the reason why farmers are getting more and more destitute and why an increasing number of Cambodian farmers are forced to leave the country to work as migrant workers in Thailand. 

Sam Rainsy suggested that the first step to help improve farmers’ living conditions is a matter of political will: the government must suppress corruption-related commercial monopolies and monopsonies so as to decrease the prices of foreign-made goods used as inputs in agriculture and to increase the prices of local farm products.