IRDEP-PS – Without farm-land, farming skill and experience, Ms. Mom Srey got no ideas what to do to generate incomes to support her family of nine people.
Fortunately, in early 2002, LWF Cambodia partnered with Ms. Mom Srey. Through the partnership, LWF provided her with continuous in-kind support, including capacity building, aiming to free her from the poverty trap.
Soon after becoming a partner, or called “Partner Household”—a terminology used by LWF, Ms. Srey was invited to join a farmer exposure visit, organized by LWF, to learn about growing morning glory, watermelon and string bean from a model farmer in her neighboring district of Chbar Mon in Kampong Speu province.
Ms. Srey said that the visit strongly inspired her to grow vegetables. Soon after returning from the visit, she approached a rich man who was the owner of a farm, located near her house in Tayong village, Dambouk Rung commune of Phnom Sruoch district. The man, who lives in Phnom Penh, has just planted mango saplings on his 3-hectare farm. She told the man that if he allowed her to grow some crops on the remaining areas of the land in between each sapling, she would help him take care of the saplings. Having heard that, the man accepted her request.
Shortly, Ms. Srey decided to borrow some money from an LWF-Supported Village Bank in her village to spend on the start up of land preparation and seeds. She grew pumpkins on one hectare of the area, watermelons on another hectare and cucumbers on the rest.
She said that because of a lack of water she planted the crops only two times per year. The first planting started at the beginning of the rainy season and the second one started a month before the rainy season ended. Then, the land was left idle during the six-month dry season.
She said over the end of each period of 2 months and 20 days, her pumpkins yielded 6 tons. She hired a truck to transport the produce to sell at a market in Phnon Penh. The gross income from the sale of the pumpkins per investment totaled 3 million riels ($750). After deducting the costs of $120 for transportation and $90 for hiring a ploughing machine to till the land, she earned a net income of $540.
With some extra incomes from the sales of watermelon and cucumber, in 2006 she could afford to buy a walking power tiller worth $1,200. Resulted from her strong efforts, in 2007, she saved some more money and had her new house built. It cost $2,000. Having seen her farming business kept growing, she had an idea to buy a farmland for her own. With a good saving plan, she could afford to buy one hectare of farmland worth $1,200 in 2009. It locates near the mango farm she had worked on.
Ms. Srey, who previously had less than one hectare of rice field, now owned two hectares of rice field. “All these achievements originated from my vegetable business,” she said. “I stop borrowing the money from the village bank two years ago because I am better off now,” she said. “I have nothing to say, except sincere thanks to LWF and its donors who made me successful today.”