How vegetable growing training has been the key of development in Koh Ent Chey
The trainings provided by CRDT in Channty’s village helped the villagers to grow many vegetables so they can feed their family and increase their income. Moreover, women are now more independent and men can spend more time patrolling and protecting their environment.
Mrs. Ke Channty, 22 years old, recently became a member of Koh Ent Chey Community Forest. With her husband and their only child they live in the village of Beong Char commune, Sambour district, Kratie province.
Channty registered as a CF member in 2015 because she feels concerned about the deforestation in her community. She is also facing a new economic condition since she is a young bride and is starting a new life living separately from her parents. The family income is coming from rice cultivation and fishing.
However, last year this community has lived a severe drought: the Mekong was very shallow so it was difficult for people to fish as they usually do, and they had a low yield of rice. This year, the whole community lacked both food and money.
The CRDT-SFB project has provided to the community alternative livelihoods activities to help the inhabitants face their issues. 51 of the 222 Community Forest (CF) members in Koh Ent Chey village received training and coaching in vegetable growing techniques and in climate change. With their new skills, CF members have been able to grow many vegetables for family consumption and sale, even during the dry season. CRDT has also trained the women to farming, so they can handle these activities while their husbands are doing forest patrolling (4 times a month).
“Last year in this village (Koh Ent Chey) we were not able to grow enough vegetable. We had to buy vegetables imported from Sambour town and not produced in Cambodia to merchants. But since villagers started to receive trainings as part of the CRDT project, now many people in the village have vegetable farms”, said Mrs. Ke Channty. “Now, we only buy carrots and onions to the merchants because we cannot grow it in our farm so the amount of imported vegetables is reduced and people are eating much more organic vegetables.
This year I grew enough vegetable to feed my family and to generate around $20 per month by selling vegetable to local people. Now even when my husband is doing some forest patrolling with the other CF members I’m able to take care of our farm and to sell vegetables. Before the training, only my husband was able to do that. Thanks to the training I’m more independent and me and my family we can contribute more to the protection of our environment.”
Mr. Bin Dim
