Mechanized farming on the rise

KHMER TIMES
SOK CHAN

There are more John Deere tractors, now, on Cambodian farms. Reuters

The use of agricultural machinery in Cambodia has risen noticeably compared with last year, said the Agriculture Ministry.

A ministry report released last week showed that the use of agriculture machinery rose to about 91 percent in 2016, compared with 83 percent in 2015, while the use of cattle in farming was 8.8 percent last year.

Ouk Makara, director of the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, said the increasing use of tractors and other agricultural machinery was a good sign because it cut costs and saved time.

Thus, farmers could use their time to grow another crop or do something else besides growing rice.

“It is good for agriculture when it is dominated by machinery other than cattle since Cambodia is short of labor in the agriculture sector as lots of rural people migrate to work in a neighboring country or find another job besides farming,” Mr. Makara said.

“I think that labor is more expensive than using machinery for farming – especially harvesting rice paddy since the cost of using labor is $150 for a hectare of rice paddy while it is only $100 for a hectare of rice paddy using machinery.”

Mr. Makara said machinery will provide much benefit to farmers if they use it properly. Farmers will cut costs, save time and speed up tasks, making their harvests competitive in the market, he added.

Chan Sophal, director of the Center for Policy Studies, said the increasing use of machinery such as tractors or walk-behind tractors is good because it helps boost the efficiency in farming at a time when there is a shortage of labor.

Mr. Sophal said that in past years, much of the labor force was engaged in farming, but most workers have shifted to work in the construction and services sectors. Some have migrated to work in neighboring countries such as Thailand where they could make more money than farming.

Song Saran, CEO of Amru Rice (Cambodia), which worked closely with 3,000 farmers in Cambodia, said the trend of farming in developed countries is turning to the use of agricultural machinery, tractors or walk-behind tractors, which are good for the agricultural sector.

However, in Cambodia it seemed be difficult to gain a profit by using machinery since fuel and maintenance costs would be higher than cattle.

“We want farmers to diversify their agricultural tools, method and innovation to make the efficiencies and gain in profit in agriculture,” Mr. Saran said.

“Machinery alone will not provide much productivity if they invest a lot of money in it, even if they have more yield. There are still the high production costs, to contend with,” he said.

Mr. Saran has suggested the government help reduce the production cost such as fuel price to help farmers.

Ngorn Saing, CEO of RMA Cambodia – the official distributor of American agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere – said the use of tractors in Cambodia has risen but tractor imports fell last year.

Mr. Saing said that RMA saw the import of agricultural machinery drop last year to about 200 units from 300 units in 2015.

In 2016, farming by agricultural machinery covered about 2.73 million hectares in the rainy season out of the total of about three million hectares. In the dry season, machinery helped farm 356,705 hectares out of 369,304 hectares, according to an Agriculture Ministry report.