Project News

Project of Capacity Building for Quality Standard Control of Agricultural Materials (Chemical Fertilizers and Pesticides) (QCAM Project) has started a public awareness raising activity in the project pilot areas, Kien Svay and Koh Thom Districts in Kandal Province, from June 10th, 2011. Chemical fertilizers with low quality are a serious problem in Cambodia. All the chemical fertilizers are imported from other countries and they are expensive (e.g. 50kg of urea costs about 20USD), and the farmers do not have any means to check the quality of chemical fertilizers either before purchasing them. Farmers, who purchase fertilizers with a loan before planting, suffer a great loss when the fertilizers turn out to be in poor quality, or even worse, fake.

In July 2009, the QCAM Project collected baseline data on granule chemical fertilizers in the pilot areas. Among 37 products that were identified as products of granule chemical fertilizers, 25 of them (67.6%) were not registered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF), and 22 (59.5%) had labels in foreign languages, such as Vietnamese and Thai. (Photo1) Also, according to "Report on Rapid Appraisal of Fertilizer Quality in Cambodia", conducted by the World Bank, several mixed fertilizer samples produced in Vietnam did not meet the quality standards indicated on the labels.

Photo 1: Chemical fertilizer with Vietnamese label.

Photo 2: Poster on proper selection and use of chemical fertilizers.

To improve this situation, the QCAM Project has created a poster named "proper selection and use of chemical fertilizers." (Photo2) This poster tells main effects of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium on crops, and explains symptoms when rice and vegetables lack in those elements with photos, making it easy to understand by farmers. Finally, it recommends choosing chemical fertilizers that have been registered by the MAFF, attached with Khmer labels and registration numbers.

After this poster was produced, the QCAM Project has started handing out the posters to retailers, commune offices and public places in the pilot areas, with staff from Provincial Department of Agriculture (PDA) in Kandal Province from June 10th. (Photo 3 and 4) The retailers put the new poster next to posters on banned pesticides and brown planthopper and listened to the explanations by the staff with much interest. We hope to see a day when all the illegal chemical fertilizers are gone and the farmers can increase their agricultural production without any damages caused by the illegal fertilizers.

Photo 3: Dr. Kazuhiko Yagi, Chief Advisor of the QCAM Project visiting a retailer with a staff of the PDA in Kandal Province.

Photo 4: Staff of the PDA explaining the poster to a staff of a commune office.

Written by Toshinori Hamaguchi, JICA Expert