American Ensembles Take On Cambodian Songs

Say Mony, VOA Khmer

04 Jul 2013

American Ensembles Take On Cambodian Songs

Two US ensembles last week performed benefit concerts in Phnom Penh just ahead of the Fourth of July holiday. Band members and organizers say they hoped the music would bring the US and Cambodia culturally closer.

American children from the Boston Children's Chorus sang "Phnom Penh," a song composed by the late king Sihanouk in the Cambodian capital. (Say Mony, Phnom Penh)

Artists Want Cambodia Known for Its Work, Not Genocide

Say Mony, VOA Khmer

12 April 2013

The troupe will perform at the Abrons Arts Center in New York April 18 and April 19. Their performance, “Olden New Golden Blue,” explores the dancers’ relationship with their past.

PHNOM PENH - A group of performing artists in Cambodia say they are working to ensure that Cambodia is internationally known for more than a genocidal regime that ruled the country more than 30 years ago. That includes the ongoing performances now underway in New York for the Season of Cambodia festival—where many works and performances are on display in April and May.

Rice Experts See Better Prospects in New Seeds

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Friday, 25 February 2011

With more than 2.7 million hectares of cultivatable land, agriculture experts hope new methods and seeds can help the country reach a goal of 1 million tons of annual rice export by 2015.

For five years now, Yin Narong has used a new method to plant rice. Instead of planting from the seeds of the previous year’s harvest, he buys new seeds from a local company. The difference, he said in an interview, has been a boost in yield of 200 kilograms of rice each harvest on one-fifth a hectare. “Now with pure seeds we get up to 900 kilograms,” the 52-year-old farmer in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district said.

Cambodia Struggling With Paddy Rice Flight

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Monday, 31 January 2011

A Cambodian man carries rice at a paddy rice farm in Bekpeang village, Kampong Cham province. The government wants to see a million tons of milled rice exported by 2015.

One recent afternoon, farmer Hem Preoung was discussing what to do about a small wooden barn full of paddy rice with a group of other farmers. The 62-year-old farmer is a member of the Preah Theat village farm association, in Kandal province’s Kandal Stung district. For the past five years, she has kept 15 kilograms of harvested paddy rice in the small barn as a kind of bank.

Chemical Pesticides Still Recklessly Used, Farmers Say

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer 
Tuesday, 11 January 2011

Striving to make a living and eat during a slow economy, Cambodian farmers in Kandal province said this week they continue to use whatever pesticides they can affordably obtain and that they often spray without wearing protective masks and gloves. Cambodia's Ministry of Agriculture is running a campaign to increase awareness about pesticide use. More than 80 percent of Cambodia's 14 million people live in rural areas and heavily depend on farming. (Pich Samnang, Kandal province, VOA Khmer)

Economists See Boon for Agriculture in 2011

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Local Cambodian villagers plant rice in a farm field during the rainy season in Prakar village.

While other sectors took major hits in the 2008 economic crisis, agriculture gained the attention of many economists as it helped prop up the country’s flagging economy. That could lead to a shift in focus toward more agriculture, economists here say. “I think it did create a certain awareness among a lot of policy makers,” Peter Brimble, chief economist for the Asian Development Bank, told VOA Khmer.

Farmers Watch as Tonle Sap Authority Crushes Reservoirs

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Friday, 06 August 2010

One morning in early July, about a dozen bulldozers and excavators came to Msa Krong commune where Kong Heuv lives, about 50 kilometers outside Kampong Thom provincial town.

The machines had come to tear down more than 10 reservoirs local farmers had built to capture the receding waters of the swollen Tonel Sap lake.

“I was very disappointed with the destruction of my reservoir,” said the 67-year-old farmer, as he walked along the flattened dam one recent day.

Farmers Happy To Reduce Elephant Conflicts

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Wednesday, 21 April 2010 

With more Cambodians clearing forest land for agriculture and an increase of development projects in remote areas like this, the habitat for wild elephants is decreasing, putting them in conflict with humans.

Chab Leoung, a dark-skinned farmer, sat behind his cottage one day in March, complaining of injuries to his jaw and foot. The 48-year-old was trammeled by an elephant while traveling in the forest in the Cardamom Mountains three years ago.

“A group of elephants first ran after my dog, but then one in the group turned on me,” recalled the father of four, who lives in Chi Phat commune, in Koh Kong province’s Thmar Bang district. “It hit me and then stepped on my face and my foot.”