Bamboo resources create jobs for communities in the Prey Lang Landscape

“I could not believe that we can make us of the bamboo resources in our forest in that far better way. Before, bamboo in our village has been used as fishing materials, fence for rice fields and some small household equipment. Now it is a big income source for us. We were surprised when we got the first purchase order of incense stick” said Mrs. Sann Vansen, vice-chief of Koh Ent Chey Community forestry and a member of processing group enterprise.

“Bamboo Processing Enterprise in Prey Lang” is a project of CRDT funded by USAID and has been implementing in Beong Char commune, Sambour District of Kratie Province since July 2016. The project aims to generate incomes for local people by helping them to harvest and use bamboo resources within the Prey Lang Landscape in a sustainable manner.

Within this project, 315 (83 F) community forestry members joined to form as four bamboo collection groups representing their four villages (O’krasang, Kampong Damrie, Koh Ent Chey and Kampong Kbeourng). In addition, one bamboo processing enterprise is formed to buy all the raw bamboo culms collected in order to process them into incense stick.

So far, more than 150 villagers have been trained on sustainable bamboo harvest. They are following the techniques learned and rotating among their sub-groups to collect bamboo to sell to the processing enterprise. A bamboo culm can be sold for 1500 riels (US$ 0.4).
Additionally, a processing group enterprise with 20 members have got trained in making incense stick before the processing materials/machines were installed in their community in early February. Through an evaluation by our buyer who is also the trainer, the processing members are able to make incent stick with good quality already after a one week learning by doing.

Proving good quality product, the processing enterprise now got a purchase order to supply 10 tons of incense stick in the first month and continue to increase 5 tons monthly. To get 10 tons of incense sticks, 2857 bamboo culms are collected by 10 collectors and to be processed by 27 processors. The profit/loss analysis showed that a processing member will earn around 20,000 riel to 30,000 riel per day (US$ 5 to 7.5) from their production of 15kg to 20kg of incense sticks with price of 1600 riel to 1800 riel per kilogram.

By Bin Dim
Project Manager in Sambour Project Sites