The Effectiveness of CRDT Livelihood Activities in Support of Conservation of Natural Resources

Mrs. Thanh Dary, 23 years old, lives at Koh Dambong village which is located on Tnot Island, 5 Km from Sambour district. She is married with Mr. Koch Soheng, 24 years old and a farmer, and together they have a baby daughter. They are farmers and their earnings depend on the rice field, chicken raising, fishing and a home garden.

Currently, Mrs. Thanh has been working with CBO since late 2010 to present. She is involving with chicken raising and saving activity. Since 2010, she received different trainings such as community proposal writings, bookkeeping, chicken and pig raising techniques, system rice intensification (SRI) and joined other outside workshops after CRDT invitation.

Thanks to her experiences, hard commitments and husband support, she decided to choose the chicken raising activity to support her family. Before the project, her family depended on rice field and fishing only. Her family’s incomes from the sales of fish were not enough to cover their daily life expenditures. Her family use to raise chickens and had around  2-3 hens for their daily consumption and sale. During that time, she could produce around 15-20 chickens per time, sell 2-3 chickens and get around 12.50$-20.00$. Nowadays she produced around 40-50 heads per time, sold the chickens 4 times in 2012, which represents 30-35 chickens and gathered an amount of 675.00$. After she sold the chickens, she currently has around 100 chickens including chicks, hens, cocks and chickens. Currently, she has got 10 hens and 3 cocks.

Moreover, she said her husband went less to fish at the river as he has been busy assisting his wife raising the chickens with constructing chicken coops, finding the natural feeds and daily care of the chickens. Before her husband involved in this project, he would always sail for fishes so far and stayed over there. During the fishing season, her husband goes fishing around 15-20 days a month but that time he just went fishing one time in December 2012 around 5-7 days only. Especially, from 2010-2013 they faced dry season (2012) and flooding (2010), so her family and villagers here got lower yield than in 2011. This year, her family lost 30-40% of its rice production. She said that she has been lucky this year as she produced a lot of chicken for sale.

To achieve the chicken raising, she followed the chicken raising techniques such as chicken daily care; chicken coop building for chickens and chicks, vaccination for all chickens, and feeds and water applying. Moreover, she used traditional medicine such as insects, lemongrasses and kind of trees combined with the fresh water for chickens drink and treatments. So, she suggested to all CBO members of chicken raising activities in Beong Char commune to follow the techniques of CRDT trainings and other stakeholders. This would allow them to have success in their chicken raising, have an improved food security and income generation. Finally this activity is very important for farmers and is related to 5 years program of CRDT to achieve its vision and mission.

Now as she got experience from CRDT trainings, CBO members and personal experience, and as she is already building a house, she will buy more material to extend the chicken coop and purchase 10 new hens for her business. Her business of chicken raising will start in February 2013.

In the end, she commented that CBO establishments by CRDT for chicken raising, pig raising, vegetable growing and saving activity are certainly important for her family and the people living along the Mekong River because they can receive and improve their techniques, skills, knowledge and communication. Those activities will help the community to avoid illegal activities, support conservation activities and adapt to climate change. Especially, she and also other farmers in the village got food security and regular income from their agricultural production.

By Bo Ravuth, Project Officer in Kratie Province