by: Sovanneary Huot

COVID-19 in Cambodia

The COVID-19 pandemic is truly global. It severely threatens the health and economy of all countries – large and small, rich and poor. To date, Cambodia has had fewer reported COVID-19 cases than its neighbors. As of August 6, 2020 Cambodia had only 273 COVID-19 cases, while Vietnam had 964, and Thailand 3,378. Nonetheless, the pandemic has still had far-reaching impacts on the Cambodian society and economy. For instance, in the education sector, 13,482 schools have been temporarily suspended since March 16, 2020. The tourism sector has also been hit hard due to the travel restrictions. As of May 8, 2,956 tourism-based businesses were forced to temporarily close, which caused 45,405 staff members to be laid off. As of June, the hotels and guesthouses in the famous tourist site in Siem Reap province – home to very popular, impressive and beautiful ancient temples – have been devastated. COVID-19 forced 18 hotels and 96 guesthouses to close permanently, while 172 hotels and 99 guesthouses have been temporarily shuttered. Only 40 hotels and 66 guesthouses remain in service. The closure of hotels and guesthouses in Siem Reap alone resulted in around 8,000 newly unemployed workers.

Cambodia’s textile industry, which provides a total of about 850,000 jobs, of which 85% are occupied by women, has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Around one-third of 600 garment factories have been closed, leaving tens of thousands of workers unemployed. The majority of workers and staff are struggling to survive. The agricultural sector – the focus of this blog post – has also been severely impacted. For example, only fragrant rice is allowed to be exported; other types of rice are only sold internally to ensure domestic supply. This unprecedented situation has put farmers in a painful condition by restricting markets for their products.

The Royal Government of Cambodia COVID-19 Response

The Royal Government of Cambodia offered an initial package of $1.16 billion to help mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. Some of this support was targeted to the health system to help it prepare for a potential surge in COVID-19 cases. For livelihood coping assistance, the government provides the stimulus package funds to 2.4 million poor and vulnerable households in the categories Poor One (the poorest) and Poor Two (the second poorest). The measures to boost the economy include reducing taxes on some businesses and agencies, restructuring loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, and providing investment capital at low interest rates to small businesses.

In helping the Cambodian government fight against this global health crisis, some countries and development partners including Australia, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, The United States, and Vietnamhave provided some technical and financial support to address negative economic and social impacts. For instance, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a $250 million loan to help the Government of Cambodia strengthen the country’s health system, implement social assistance to poor and vulnerable people, and provide economic stimulus to small and medium-sized enterprises. The French government provided a grant of $1.7 million to help the tourism sector recover and rebuild in a post-COVID-19 world.

The Impacts of COVID-19 on Smallholder Women Farmers

Although the number of cases in Cambodia is thankfully low to date, even the threat of COVID-19 has caused widespread suffering. Here I focus on smallholder farmers, especially women farmers, who have arguably suffered disproportionately. Smallholder farmers have commonly experienced some form of livelihood disruption and economic hardship. They find it difficult to sell their products. Basic forces of supply and demand have worked against them. Weak demand for their production forced farmers to sell their goods at lower prices, resulting in lost income and new challenges to continue in, much less expand, their farming enterprises.

To learn more about how women farmers have been affected by COVID-19, I  remotely interviewed farmers who were affiliated with the recently completed Women in Agriculture Network Project in Cambodia (WAgN-Cambodia). The WAgN Cambodia project was designed by Penn State and partners toempower women and improve the nutrition status of women and children in Cambodia. This project received support from the USAID-funded Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) at Kansas State University.

The team was led by Penn State researcher Rick Bates (PI), David Ader (University of Tennessee) and other Penn State and Cambodian research partners. I was also part of this project, having studied women’s leadership within agricultural cooperatives for my Master’s thesis.

Regarding the impacts of Coronavirus, a female farmer of Khom Khnat Samaki Rong Roeung Agricultural Cooperative (KKSRAC) in Siem Reap province reported that her family was badly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. The lockdown of the country kicked her husband and her adult children out of their jobs. The closure of restaurants, schools, tourist destinations, traditional ceremonies, other businesses, and large social events led to decreasing the demand for vegetable production. Therefore, the quantity of her vegetables sold dropped by 30-40% at lower prices.

Another group of women farmers in Battambang province reported similar challenges and hardships during this COVID-19 outbreak. They sold their vegetable production at a lower price and, as a consequence, lacked investment capital for their next cycle of vegetable production. They used to have several sources of income, including selling vegetables and income from their husbands and children working in the towns, capital city, or to the neighboring countries. Since the lockdown, their husbands and children returned home, which meant both loss of income as well as added expenses for food consumption, medical care, and other household expenditures.

Through the Agriculture Rural Development Bank (ARDB), the government provides some mechanisms to help the agricultural sector by offering accessible and low-interest rates to farmers to maintain agriculture production. However, this government support was offered only to small-scale enterprises and larger farm operations, to the exclusion of smallholder farmers. While some of the farmers would have qualified for the stimulus package funds, based on their low income, that program was really more for emergency food relief. It certainly was not designed to help poor smallholders to sustain their farms. Although there is no visible food crisis at this writing, it is vital to support smallholder farmers since they are uniquely positioned to ensure locally accessible and sustainable food production and distribution during this challenging time. Therefore, the government and other development partners should consider targeted support for small-scale producers and smallholder farmers.

COVID-19 Impacts to my Personal Life

During this pandemic I have been living on the other side of the globe from my family back home. My husband and I are the only Cambodians in State College, Pennsylvania, United States. Like most people, we sometimes feel a bit feverish or have a headache now and then, troubles that these days are harder to dismiss. The worries cascade. Have we contracted COVID-19? If so, how should we tell our family back in Cambodia? My mother-in-law and my parents are old. What would happen to them if they heard that?

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected not only farmers but also consumers. As a consumer, I have been leery of consuming storebought meats, vegetables, and fruits. As news and social media have reported, U.S. workers in meatpacking, food processing, and harvesting and production have tested COVID-19 positive. For example, the recent news release titled “Eat This, Not That” reports that 50,000 such workers in the U.S have tested positive since March. To minimize risk, my husband and I grow mung bean and some vegetables and herbs inside our apartment. Sprouting mung bean takes only four to five days. Mung bean sprouts have many uses. They can be used as fresh vegetables for salad, as fried vegetables, and they also can be used to make pickles or even a dessert. By complementing what’s in our refrigerator, all this has helped reduce the need to visit the grocery store. Our cultivation of mung bean sprouts is just one way to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by finding alternative and safe foods. I hope people across regions and cultures can share other ways of self-producing food.

Photos credits:

“Women and Conservation Agriculture” Ms. Brak Yan, a female leadership member of Khom Khnat Samaki Rong Roeung Agricultural Cooperative (KKSRAC) in Siem Reap province. KKSRAC was under the WAgN-Cambodia.

“Organic vegetables” Ms. Dany and her husband (on the left), a former farmer member of the WAgN-Cambodia; Ms. Channaty Ngang (on the right), a former technical staff of WAgN-Cambodia, Battambang province

 

Sovanneary Huot is a Ph.D. Student in Rural Sociology in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, at The Pennsylvania State University. Her work focuses on Gender, International Agriculture, and Community Development. Her Master’s thesis examines barriers that women farmers in Cambodia face in acquiring and working in leadership positions, as well as their decision-making power.